The old man turned so quickly that his boat almost tipped. The glow from the swinging lantern picked up the rage in his eyes. He reached over and slapped the side of his boat with his open palm. Two quick thwacks. Seconds later the cormorant surfaced and headed toward the boat. There were no fish in its throat. The fisherman lifted the bird into the boat then stared at Fong. “Go away, stupid man. Go home. Or to hell. Just go.” Before Fong could answer, the old man snapped the glass shut on his lantern. Instantly the darkness was complete.
Fong couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He strained to hear the man’s oar but couldn’t. The man must be sitting in the dark staring at him. Fong settled back and waited. An odd connection grew between the two men. Finally Fong repeated his question. “Do you have a daughter, Grandpa?”
The plunk of an oar broke the silence. Fong reached for his oar and tried to follow the sound, but every time he paused to listen the noise seemed to be coming from a different direction. Finally he stopped rowing and just listened. He didn’t hear anything.
Hours later Fong managed to reach a rocky point of land. He had no idea where he was. He got out of the boat and did his best to hook the bowline to a tree stump.
He sat on the smooth rocks and listened to the lapping of the lake.
Then, as if from the water itself, the fisherman appeared – a spectre from the nether worlds. He didn’t get out of his boat. He just sat there lolling with the waves and stroking the cormorant. Finally he spoke.
He told Fong everything. The small statue of the horse’s hindquarters he’d found in the cormorant’s throat. Meeting the archeologist. The man’s affair with Chu Shi. The coming of the foreigners. The resistance to them. The Beijing people. The acceptance. The taking of blood. The party high up on the island terrace. The wine. The typhoid. The death. The disinterment of Chu Shi. The celebration on the lake boat. Finally, of saving the whore, Sun Li Cha.
When he was finished, Fong sat quietly looking at the great lake with the island just coming to light in the dawn. All he could think of saying was, “Thank you.”
The old fisherman shrugged and began to row away.
“One more question?”
The old man stopped. “What more could you possibly want to know?”
“Just one thing – why did you tell me?”
A long silence followed. The old man looked away from Fong and stared at the dawn. When he spoke, something had broken in his voice. Something had given up. “You ask why I told you all this – because I have no children left. Because I’m old. Perhaps, because I’m a fool.” He patted the cormorant. The bird nuzzled its beautiful head into the old gnarled hand. Then the man sighed and finally unleashed his burden. “Because Chu Shi, the girl who died from typhoid, was my daughter. Her mother and I met – once – when I was young.” A smile softened his ancient features.
Fong nodded but didn’t speak.
The fisherman reached down and picked up something from the floor of the boat. Then tossed it to Fong. Fong caught the object and turned it in the light.
It was the small bronze of the hindquarters of a horse.
“What . . .?”
“I found that thing, down there.” He pointed vaguely toward the shoal. “I gave it to Dr. Roung. He gave it to Chu Shi. She arranged to get it back to me before she died. I think that thing killed her. No, I lie. My greed killed her.”
He sat very still for a moment then turned away from Fong, toward the rising sun. His shoulders lifted and dropped convulsively. Fong heard nothing but assumed the man was sobbing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The coroner had the window seat. Lily sat beside him, her head buried in a fashion magazine she’d bought at the airport. As soon as the plane levelled off, he leaned his forehead against the cool Plexiglass – and drank it in.
China.
Home.
Bands of colour melded into the patterns of intricate tapestries – then into rainbows. Hills became the contours of women’s bodies. Space became infinite and soft. Things that do not meet, met.
Then clacking. Clacking. An express train slowing as it passed through a local station. Then him, seated on the express train, looking at the platform across the way through the windows of the stationary local train.
A young man and a woman. Standing on the platform. Holding hands. She facing the tracks, he turned away – peeing through the boards. Simple. Just holding hands and peeing.
“Are you done?” she asked.
He looked up into her round, calm face, into her coal black eyes and nodded.
“Then button up, the train’s ready to go.”
“Is it far?” His voice was surprisingly young.
“Beyond the mountain,” she said and smiled.
“That far?”
“It’s not far, dear. In fact, it’s always been very near.”
He wanted to look at her but found himself looking at his hand. And her hand. And recognized it – his mother’s hand. He looked up into his mother’s proud face and grinned.
“You know the way?”
“I do.” She touched his forehead and brushed away his hair. “Do you?”
He felt himself smiling and crying at the same time. He took a deep breath then said, “I do.”
Then he let go.
Lily saw Grandpa’s tears running down the windowpane. She heard him mumble. She heard him take a deep breath then let out the air in one long single line of life. In the reflection, deep in the double Plexiglass windowpane, she saw the smile on his lips. She felt his hand. It was cold and so very still.
When the plane landed in Beijing, she sat beside the dead man until everyone left their seats. A steward came down the aisle to them. “Is he all right?”
Lily looked at the young man. She didn’t know how to answer his question.
Within six hours Lily had the basic information on the telephone number and was back on a plane to Xian. This time it was she who stared out the window at the terrifying, intense beauty of China from the air.
A small porcelain vase with a sealed top sat on her lap.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A great desert storm cloud enshrouded Xian as Fong approached in the Jeep. There was no water in the dingy cloud, only darkness and sand blown all the way from the vast desert to the west. “Here the West is to the west of you,” Fong thought. “At home, in Shanghai, the West is to the east. Old and new.”
Fong guided the Jeep carefully into the darkness. It was colder than he thought and the streets were empty. Gaudy tourist hotels, then crumbling Chinese buildings momentarily pierced the gloom as the vehicle’s headlights swept past them.
Fong took a corner and suddenly emerged from the cloud. He stopped the Jeep and hopped out to glory in the beauty of the night sky. Brilliantly bright stars, pinpricks in the black, black dome of the heavens shone down on him. On the horizon, a perfect crescent moon.
For an instant he considered getting back into the Jeep and driving as hard and fast as he could in any direction. Just drive until the gas gave out. Then walk until his legs failed him. Then crawl until – but only for an instant. He checked his street map and got back into the Jeep, slamming the door. He liked the angry sound of the metal against metal. It bespoke action. Maybe even justice.
Dr. Roung wasn’t particularly surprised when Fong barged into his office, but he was definitely not pleased. The man excused himself and went out of the room, leaving Fong alone. Fong fingered the small bronze statue in his pocket. It and the four stacked stones linked the archeologist to Chu Shi. Xian to the island. But he still needed the link back to the rogue in Beijing.