They fought their way through the crowd and took their seats near the front of the balcony. As soon as the lights went down, Xiao Ming climbed up on his lap. As the performance unfolded, he explained the magic of what was taking place. “When she carries the stick with the tassels it indicates that she is riding a horse. See how her posture changes as well and her gait. As if she is being carried, as if she no longer has her feet on the ground.” Xiao Ming smiled and imitated the posture while still on his lap. The scene ended as cymbals crashed and the actress struck a stunning pose on one foot. Xiao Ming clapped her small hands and shrieked “Hao” along with the rest of the crowd. As the performance proceeded, she held her father’s hand tight, eyes bright with excitement. And he watched her. Fell into her eyes. Remembered his own joy. How odd it was. The one thing he regretted was that his first wife would never meet his child. How odd.
Another loud clash of cymbals brought him back to the theatre. The lead actor struck a pose, lifted a foot parallel to the ground then reached up and pulled the feather on his headdress down into his mouth. The horns sounded. The actor shrieked. The crowd “Hao’ed” until they were hoarse.
Fong explained the meaning of the juggling and dances to her, just as his father had explained them to him. Then he added new ideas that his father wouldn’t even begin to understand. “This is something that is of us, Xiao Ming. It’s not like McDonald’s or computers that come from faraway. We must keep alive such things as this.” She nodded then turned her eyes back to the stage, to the stylized miracle that is Peking Opera.
Six hours later, the phone on Fong’s night table awoke him from a deep sleep. It took Fong a few short moments to understand that the terrified voice he heard belonged to the janitor of the academy’s theatre. It took a few longer moments for Fong to pull on his clothing and race over to the old theatre. But it took many, many, much longer moments before Fong could believe the information his eyes were sending to his brain.
A body – sirens in the distance – at the end of a rope – sirens louder – dangling from the ceiling or the flies or whatever theatre people called them. Still swinging. Perhaps the earth was in motion. Something important was falling into the caverns of Fong’s troubled heart. His enemy, his rival, the Canadian theatre director Geoff Hyland was no more.
“Something ends but something else always begins,” an old voice whispered inside Fong’s head.
The doors of the theatre crashed open. Police officers. Something infinitely profane in a sometimes sacred place.
“Sir?” Fong had forgotten that he had called Captain Chen before he ran to the theatre. Forgotten that this was a crime scene. “You knew him, didn’t you sir?”
Fong remembered the weight of Geoff’s hand on his shoulder and the writing on the back of a business card – which he had ignored out of anger, folly – jealousy. Fong’s wife had died on an abortionist’s table carrying a child that could well have been fathered by this man, by Geoffrey Hyland.
“Yes. He was my first wife’s lover.”
Fong didn’t wait for an answer. What answer could poor Chen give? As Fong climbed the stairs to the stage to take a closer look, a voice from the darkness stopped him, “Stay off that. This is a crime site. And this time at least we are going to follow procedures.” It was Li Chou, the head of Crime Scene Unit. He didn’t wait for Fong’s response. He waved a fleshy paw and his team of six technicians hopped up on the stage. They taped off the area, set up harsh arc lights and began their work. Fong felt like a child looking in a store window at a toy he knew he’d never be able to touch. Suddenly Li Chou was right there in front of him, on the other side, the right side, of the tape. “You stay there. Don’t even think about coming across.”
The man’s voice was unnaturally loud. For a brief moment Fong wondered why, then he got it. Fong’s subordinates were there. He had embarrassed Li Chou in front of his people and now Li Chou was returning the favour.
“You!” Li Chou shouted to Captain Chen. “I want a word with you.” Chen waited for Fong’s approval. Fong nodded and Captain Chen moved toward Li Chou. As he passed, Fong whispered, “Tell him whatever he wants to know.” Chen stopped. Fong said it again with stronger emphasis, “Whatever he wants. It’s time for you to deal with the politics of the department if you want to stay with Special Investigations. You’re married now; think about that sometimes. Now tell him whatever he wants.”
Captain Chen gave Fong an odd look then ducked beneath the tape and hopped up on the stage. Fong retreated to the back of the theatre, where only two weeks ago he had sat with the man who was now swinging gently from the rafters of the stage. A man who had left a business card beneath his collar, on the back of which were the words Help me, Fong.
Captain Chen disappeared into the wings of the theatre with Li Chou as the CSU technicians meticulously laid out a grid on the stage floor with string. It always seemed to come back to this. To a theatre. To the darkness – and of course to his first wife, the actress Fu Tsong, whose image seemed to emerge from the seats, from the smells, from the very darkling light of this place.
This stage on the campus of the Shanghai Theatre Academy had been his wife’s favourite theatre though she had performed all over Asia. Its seats were a wreck. Its lighting system was so archaic that it tripped breakers all over the neighbourhood almost every time they turned it on. Its damp mustiness was so intense it entered your mouth and nose, tainted any food or drink you brought in with you, and left a marked odour on the clothes you wore. It was inescapable. So was this place’s history. “That’s what makes a theatre a place of ghosts, dear Fong,” her sweet voice whispered beside him in the dark. It was a voice he knew so very well. He was going to turn to her but he knew she wasn’t there. Dead people were dead. They did not whisper sweetly in the darkness or hold hands or soothe the yearning of the heart.
He had sat in the exact same seat two weeks before, the ghost of Fu Tsong beside him. Geoffrey Hyland, his wife’s lover, had been on the stage. “Naturally, in a place like this he’d be directing Hamlet. It’s a play about ghosts,” Fong had whispered to the darkness.
Geoffrey’s elegant frame had moved across the stage, his homely translator at his side. For the briefest moment, Geoff stopped as if suspended in space then he was on his frenetic way again. Opening night was only two days away and Geoffrey was jumpier than Fong had ever seen him. He called over the actor playing Rosencrantz and loudly asked for the satchel he carried. The young actor gave the large leather thing over to Geoff, who thanked him, then yelled some instruction in his childish Mandarin all the way to the other side of the stage. His translator quickly corrected his Mandarin without Geoff knowing it and she warned all those within earshot to watch their manners when it came to criticizing Geoff. It struck Fong that the woman was quite protective of Geoff. It made him smile. Then wince.
Geoff called the fight director onstage and spoke to him in a whisper. The fight director called the actors playing Hamlet and Laertes, who entered from stage left. Geoff nodded then headed off into the wings. The fight director set the two actors in their starting positions then dropped a handkerchief. When it hit the stage, the two drew their swords and Laertes lunged at Hamlet. Fong didn’t know this fight director, but he was immediately concerned because the actor playing Laertes seemed to be all anger and little skill. His lunges at Hamlet seemed truly intent upon hurting the other actor. The fight director stepped in just as Laertes seemed about to take a swing at Hamlet’s head.
Geoff returned from the stage-right wings and flipped the large satchel to Guildenstern saying, “Give this to your better half.”