“I’m travelling in some vehicle,
I’m sitting in some cafe.”
Joni sang in his ear. He reached for the CD jacket and read the title of the piece: “Hejira” – the journey. He pressed replay.
“I’m travelling in some vehicle,
I’m sitting in some cafe.”
“Some vehicle, some cafe, with you on that, Joni,” he thought. She’d always been like a guide. Even as a teenager she’d shown him the way. But he was careful where she led. Loneliness was a seductive but dangerous atoll.
Robert didn’t sleep on the plane or watch the endless movies that first flight to Hong Kong. He used the sixteen hours to consider what he wanted to do with what was left of his life. He discarded the immediate response – to find a new lover – and decided that he needed a new direction. A real purpose. Then he thought of his father’s words about Silas Darfun and knew beyond any doubt what that real purpose had to be.
In Hong Kong he’d been met at the airport by a lot of flash and glitter. But he was used to that as the point man in the law firm’s film deals in Hollywood and Europe. Then a silk-clad woman in her late thirties hopped into the back of the limo and sat beside him. Her exquisite features were set off by delicate makeup that highlighted her cheekbones and her amazing eyes. “If this is a Hong Kong hooker, this is not good,” he thought. Then she spoke. She was no hooker – it was worse. She was a producer.
He played an old game he’d perfected in law school. He watched her beautiful lips move as they formed the words but he totally ignored the sounds themselves. It allowed him to appear to be listening but not take in a single word. At the hotel he hopped out and slammed the door behind him before she could follow him. She was just a producer but he was the lawyer – he represented the money. “In this game, sweetie, my one-eyed Johnny beats your three tens.”
The days in Hong Kong had been predictable in content if not style. The movie business was basically practised the same all over the world. But as he was packing up to leave, the lady producer from the first day arrived unannounced at his hotel room door.
She was no longer wearing silk. Now she was all business – black suit, black sheer hose, black pumps with just a little more heel than usual. She carried an unfashionably large briefcase.
“Your dealings were fruitful, I hope,” she said and flashed him a smile.
He nodded.
“Good. You see the potential benefits in doing business in the Middle Kingdom?”
He nodded again.
“Good. My people . . .”
“Your people?” Robert stopped her.
“My people in Shanghai – those for whom I speak . . . would like you to represent their interests in further projects.”
Robert didn’t nod this time. He just canted his head a little to one side and waited.
She walked into the bedroom, put the briefcase on the bed, and snapped open the latches. Robert stepped forward to get a peek at the contents, but she angled it away from him. Then she smiled. “My associates and I are prepared to reward you handsomely for representing our interests.” Before he could respond she added, “I see you are listening to my words this time, not just watching my lips move, Mr. Cowens. I went to law school, too.” She turned the briefcase toward Robert.
Until that very moment Robert had never seen a Buddhist temple scroll. He assumed they were valuable. He also assumed that they were not strictly legal to export.
“And these would be?” he prompted.
“From the Taklamakan Desert. Antiquities worth a fortune to collectors in the West.”
Robert forced a smile to his face. “And how would these things get to the West?”
She met his smile with one that was far warmer and inviting than his own. “I would do that for you . . . this time. All you do is find us the appropriate discreet lawyers that such transactions would need. After, I meet you in New York and show you how good ‘good’ can get.” She moved her lips but made no sounds.
Here was the possibility of an insulated source of cash – the special income – he’d need if he really wanted to unearth the secrets of one Silas Darfun. This insulated income could get him around the currency restrictions both coming and going from the People’s Republic of China. Yes, this ‘antiquing’ – as he thought of it – was just the kind of business he’d need. As the card players in his father’s club would have called it – a real cash business.
“So?” she asked.
“When do I start?”
That had been four years ago. And finally after earning tens of thousands of dollars “antiquing,” and spending every cent of it on bribes, he felt he was closing in on Silas Darfun and his revenge.
The thud of the rain on his umbrella brought him back to the present.
Robert stretched, pulling the long tails of his shirt out of his pants. He sighed – shirts used to stay in his pants. Now they popped out when he stretched. Forty-four years will do that.
He turned to his Shanghanese translator, a roundfaced pixie of a woman with bad teeth, a charming smile, and impeccable English. She stood perfectly still, and entirely dry, beneath a small black parasol.
“Mr. Cowens?” she asked.
Not for the first time Robert was pleased that she was plain-looking. His weakness for attractive Asian women had ended his first marriage and derailed any plans for a second. But unlike Silas Darfun, Robert never married his Asian mistresses – and, of course, he had no children with them – or anyone else.
“Mr. Cowens?”
He held a finger to his lips. She bowed her head slightly and waited. Asmile crossed his face. His eyes twinkled. “Tell these gentlemen that their product is as phony as a drag queen’s tits.” He always liked the way she translated profanity. She thought for a moment then asked politely if drag queens were men wearing woman’s clothing. He said yes. Then she asked if they were actors like in the Peking Opera. He said, “No, not like that.” She nodded that she understood then turned to the Chinese men.
“So what did fuck-face say?” demanded the leader.
“Mr. Cowens suggests that the manuscript you are trying to sell him is less than fully authentic. In fact he stated that it is as fake as a man with succulent mammary glands.”
Robert smiled – “succulent” hadn’t been part of what he had said. That tidbit said something about his translator – about her sexual orientation, perhaps. That, in turn, answered a lot of questions about her, the way the Chinese treated her – with a stiff, angry indifference, the way she stayed aloof, her acceptance of the ostracism inherent in working for foreigners.
He smiled again. He liked questions to be answered.
Naturally the Chinese men began vociferously defending the authenticity of their offering. Robert picked up a few of the phrases – “directly from Khotan,” “the best find in years from the Taklamakan,” “he’s being a long-nosed idiot,” “we’re insulted by the accusation,” and so on and so on – blah, blah, blah. Robert wondered what the Mandarin word for blah was, then set it aside – who cared?
Robert took the plastic-wrapped scroll they were trying to sell him from his briefcase and held it out to them. Sir Auriel Stein had unmasked this kind of forgery more than a hundred years ago, right at the beginning of the mad rush by Europeans to rape the Silk Road’s desert temples of their sacred texts, statuary, and frescos.
The men protested loudly but didn’t bother reaching for the scroll. That sealed it. If the scroll were even remotely valuable they would have snatched it back from him. But they didn’t. They just made noise.
“Enough.” His voice cut through the babble of complaint. The men stopped and stared at him. Chinese were loud-spoken by nature but were always surprised when a Westerner raised his voice. Robert chuckled to himself. Just an old trick – raising the voice – but a good one. He put out his hand and whispered to his translator, “Don’t translate this.” He bowed slightly to the men, tilting water from his umbrella as he did so, put the fake scroll back in his briefcase – never know when a fake could come in handy – and smiling, yet again, said, “Fuck you very much.” Then he added, “See you a year from Simchas Torah.” He looked at his translator and inquired, “Don’t know how to translate that, do you?”