He picked up the photo. The two adults were huddled around a small creature – a baby. He pocketed the photo then hunted for an address. It didn’t take him long to find it. To his delight it was a simple walk away – to the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Mani had said “a believer must fight those who would keep the light from the world.”
And as Angel Michael made his way to the theatre academy that was precisely what he was planning to do.
Fong’s cell phone rang as he and Lily entered their apartment. Lily looked at him – well not really looked, no, dared would be a more accurate description. She dared him to answer his cell phone. So he didn’t. It continued to ring. Xiao Ming began to cry.
“Xiao Ming’s crying,” Fong said.
“I’m not deaf, Fong,” snapped Lily and folded her arms across her chest. Fong’s cell phone stopped ringing. There was a moment where the only sound in the room was Xiao Ming’s sobbing. Fong looked at the fresco on the wall beside the window. The Western man seemed to radiate light and serenity. “We could use a bit of both of those in here, now,” he thought. He reached over and turned on the overhead light.
“Turn that off.”
He did.
“What are you smiling at, Fong. There’s nothing funny here.”
Xiao Ming’s crying became more emphatic. Fong’s cell phone rang again. “Lily, can this wait?”
“For what?”
“A better time. A time when . . .”
“When you can think of a good explanation for your behaviour? No. I don’t think this can wait. And turn off that cell phone.”
He did – mid-ring. Xiao Ming stopped crying instantly. The silence in the apartment was thick with possibilities. Lily bit her lip and turned away from Fong. Finally he said, “I don’t deserve you.”
“No. You don’t.”
A long silence.
“Well, at least we agree on that.”
“This is not funny, Fong. Not funny. We are married. You are married to me. We have a baby. Fu Tsong is dead. I never asked you how or why she died. But she is dead. She must not come between us now.” Suddenly she was crying. Through her tears she barked out, “I can’t compete with a famous actress. Especially a famous dead actress.” Then she stomped her foot and screamed, “Not fair. This is not fair.”
Instantly, Xiao Ming began to wail. Fong’s cell phone didn’t ring because its ringer was turned off but he felt it vibrate in his pocket.
“Lily, listen to me. Lily.”
“I’m listening.”
“I do things. They sometimes hurt people. I don’t mean to hurt people but sometimes I do.”
“What things do you do that hurt people? Why do you hurt people? Why do you hurt me? Why were you in that theatre just now? What is happening between us?”
He took a deep breath. He felt as if he were in the middle of a swinging bridge over a vast gorge. He and Lily were somehow there together and he had set alight the rope cables on either end. The bridge was swinging and he had no idea who, if anyone, would make it back alive.
“I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
He took another deep breath. “I have always been alone Lily. With people, but alone. Fu Tsong helped me with that but only a little.”
“And me? Do I help you with that? I’d prefer that you don’t say her name in our home again, Fong.”
That stunned him. “She was part of me.”
“But not part of me or of us, Fong. You and me and Xiao Ming. Not part of us.” She leaned against the wall.
“Okay.”
“So answer the question.”
Fong sensed that the rope cable on their swinging bridge was beginning to fray, “Do you help? That question?”
“That question, Fong.”
The bridge began to rock violently, “No, I’m sorry but you don’t help with that, Lily.”
It was as if the cable snapped. Lily gave way and slid down the wall she was leaning against so that she was on the floor with her knees up by her shoulders. She began to cry. Xiao Ming joined in.
Another cable snapped. Fong plummeted toward the roiling water of the gorge beneath.
Fong went into their bedroom and picked up Xiao Ming. When he came back into the living room, Lily was on her feet drying her tears. Without saying a word she took Xiao Ming from his arms and headed toward the door.
As she reached for the door handle Fong knew he should ask, “Where are you going?” but he didn’t. When she threw open the door both of them were surprised to see Captain Chen.
“Sorry. Am I interrupting something, Miss Lily?”
“Lily, not Miss Lily and no you are not, Captain Chen. Xiao Ming and I were just on our way to my mother’s place. We thought we’d spend some time there. Perhaps a decade or two.” She pushed past Captain Chen who looked in at Fong. “Sorry, sir, but you didn’t answer your cell phone.”
Fong looked at the young man. “Have you found something?”
“About the cage, yes. I think I found who made them.”
As Fong and Chen raced out they passed right by a beautiful young Chinese man – a man whose photograph they had drawn from a VHS tape – Angel Michael. The man watched Fong and Captain Chen go and then turned in the other direction and followed Lily and Xiao Ming. Mani was clearly guiding him now. Mani had divided the family for him. A plan was coming into clear focus. The pathway to return the light was opening before him.
The ancient man sat waiting for Fong to speak. If, as Chen suspected, he had learned his metallurgy during the Great Leap Forward the man could well be in his eighties. Fong noted the man’s fingers. Long. Tapered. Supple. “What was it with artists and beautiful hands?” Fong wondered.
Fong sat opposite the man. He identified himself and began to explain why he was there.
The man stopped him. “Your companion, Captain Chen, has already explained the circumstances of your visit.”
There was a sharpness in the man’s voice and a confidence – as if he’d been interrogated many times before.
Fong thought he knew why. “Did you have a hard time of it during the Cultural Revolution?”
“I am an artist. The Red Guards hated artists.”
Simple. Straightforward. Clearly true.
“But why?” Fong found himself asking.
“We can see the beauty. They cannot.”
Again simple. Again true.
“Do you know the use your cages have been put to?”
The man nodded, his face neutral.
“Who bought the cages?”
“A man.”
“Which man?”
“He was very careful when we met. He contacted me and had me meet him at a restaurant in the Pudong.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know its name but it was set up like an American restaurant, a diner, I believe they are called. I was instructed to sit in the farthest booth from the door and face the back of the restaurant. He sat in the booth just forward of me and ordered me not to look back at him. My eyes are not very good. I’m old. I don’t see well at night and the lights in that place were turned down very low. He explained what he wanted and handed me plans.”
“How many times did you meet him?”
“Just that once.”
“How did he pick up the cages?”
“I left them for him in a locker at the North Train Station. He’d given me the key.”
“Was he old, young?” Fong reined in his growing frustration and continued, “Please think, we need your help.”
The old man digested that and pulled himself up to his full height. He spoke softly. “It was hard for me to tell.”
Chen spread out the three photos on the table. “One of these men, perhaps, Grandpa?”
The old artist looked at the three photographs. He put aside the two middle-aged men and stared at the young man with the briefcase. Then he opened a desk drawer and drew out a magnifying glass. He put it close to the photograph. Fong saw that he was looking at the man’s hands. Of course, the man had handed over the plans. The old man would have seen the hands!