A crisp young European voice responded, “Received, yes, but accepted? That we don’t know.”
A younger Asian voice chimed in, “These traders have had their way for a long time here, they will not easily be scared off.”
There was a murmur of assent around the room.
There had been no murmurs of assent five years ago when the old man had set all of this into motion. There had been just him and his thoughts.
It was a delicate time, a time when nations rose or fell on the decisions of their leaders. He knew that doing nothing would lead to inevitable ruin. The West had invested heavily in China and in Shanghai particularly. But now the big stick of the West, the renewal of most-favoured-nation trade status with the United States, an $8-billion-a-year trading partner, was meeting resistance in the American Senate. The loss of MFN status would effectively end the run of growth in China and possibly plunge it into a savage depression.
The old man with the hoarse voice knew this. He also knew that his beloved Shanghai would be hit hardest. After being ignored by Beijing for almost forty years, the city had finally begun to flourish after Deng’s famous cat remark: “ A red cat, a black cat, both are cats.” This remark was interpreted as meaning money from the East, money from the West, money is money. When four months later Deng casually remarked, “What’s so bad about being rich?” the race toward a market economy was on. The five years since had been years of startling growth in Shanghai. Growth and revitalization crowned by the new Pudong Free Trade Region. But now all this was in danger. As quickly as it began it could falter. The old man had seen it happen too many times before. If he had believed in the gods, he would have said that they were fickle and on occasion needed a good laugh. So they played around with our lives-they fully understood the idea of irony. But he didn’t believe in gods. He believed in planning and thought. He knew what the Americans wanted from China in exchange for MFN status. They wanted what they called progress on what they called human rights.
That they would not get. Ever. China would be governed by Chinese. Never again would a foreign power dictate to China how she was to run her own affairs. This was not 1840 and the shameful Treaty of Nanking where China sold her sovereignty to the English in exchange for opium. And yet, the old man chuckled, he much liked his house in the English Concession and that would not have existed had the English not run Shanghai from the Treaty of Nanking until the Liberation.
He remembered taking up his old writing brush and dabbing it in the ink that had pooled in the well of the stone. He had twisted and feathered the brush on the ancient stone’s flattened surface. Then, drawing out a piece of rice paper, he had started his list. On one side he drew the characters for WHAT THEY WANT. On the other: WHAT WE WILL DO.
The list went this way: They want action on, what they call, human rights in China. We will do nothing about this. They want the cessation of export of all goods made by the Red Army. We will stop some but put new labels on most and continue to export them. They want us to stop producing automatic weapons for export. We will protest vigorously and then give in on this point. They want us to stop exporting goods made by political prisoners. We will move the political prisoners to prisons for common criminals and continue their work. They want a cessation of trade in the products of endangered species.
For a moment he had gulped air and sorted his thoughts. Then with a deft flick of his wrist he had slashed characters that read: We will go to any length to stop the trade in ivory in our country.
Rhino horn was not mentioned. Only the old knew the true value of the miracle elixir made from that rare product. He was old. He knew. Knew and would not be denied its benefits.
The cracked-voiced man had been lost in thought. He saw that they were waiting for him. He finally asked wearily, “And this is important, we still agree?”
“If Shanghai is to grow and prosper it is,” said a middle-aged Chinese voice. It was affirmed by an American twang.
Once more there were murmurs of assent.
“How can a culture love animals so much?” the old man thought for the thousandth time. He remembered seeing a picture of a German concentration camp commandant tenderly petting a dog while in the background, the dead and the dying were kept behind wire. Like the Japanese at Kwongjo, he thought. Sentimentality is a dangerous thing.
Insurance like that which he had set in motion with the Canadian director was its antidote.
He noted again that the room was waiting for him. It was getting harder and harder to get enough air into his lungs to speak. The operation had greatly drained his powers. Gulping deeply, he forced out, “Then let us authorize a second message.”Beneath the massive city, the fibre optic networks glimmered light. And faster than a thought an African man’s fate was sealed.
Being a black man in China was like being an extremely expensive pet tiger who refused to wear its leash. The Chinese all stared at you but because you were supposed to be oppressed, like them, they didn’t gawk the way they did at white people. Ngalto Chomi, Zairian consul general, had everything a robust young male could ever ask for. An almost inexhaustible supply of money from his private and ever-so-confidential “importing” business, cars, women, and the crucial linchpin of diplomatic immunity. So Shanghai was a playland awaiting his tastes and proclivities. After six months of confinement in the Beijing embassy, constantly under the watch of the conservative ambassador, he had been transferred to the new consulate in Shanghai. He’d been sprung. No more Russians here, just Chinese and a few westerners. Not even many black people. It was a rare day that he encountered another black face on the streets. And he was on the streets of the city all the time. What a city! A candy store of infinite proportions that catered to all tastes, all curiosities. The Chinese were curious about him, too. He felt the eyes of the young women watching him as he moved past them on the crowded streets. He felt the envy as he slid into his sleek Mercedes with its Chinese chauffeur. He felt them-so many of them-all watching him.
The one person watching him that he didn’t pick out was a slight-figured Chinese man in a nicely tailored but unremarkable suit. He didn’t notice Loa Wei Fen. No one noticed Loa Wei Fen. But Loa Wei Fen was taking note of him, and carefully recording where he went and how long he stayed at each of his stops. Mr. Lo was still the lion cub on the roof, but with every passing day he was getting closer to the edge-to the leap onto that narrow strip.
The large African got back into his car, and Loa Wei Fen slid onto his bicycle. At this hour of the day, a bicycle could make as good time as a car. The large car pulled off Nanjing Road and headed south toward the Old City. Loa Wei Fen guessed he was going to the Old Shanghai Restaurant around the corner from the YuYuan Garden.
He was wrong. But he was close.
Signalling his driver to stop, Ngalto Chomi hopped out on Fang Bang Road just south and west of the popular garden. He was in the heart of the Old City. He liked it here. Here they stared at a black man, and here, he stared back at them. Here his six feet seven inches of height gave him a view of the world of the little people. The people who hacked and spat and called him very “colourful” names. The people who resented his presence. The people who knew so much about opium.
He grabbed a plastic bag of cut-up pineapple off one of the stands, threw down a ten-kwai note and, without waiting for the change, headed north on He Nan smiling and munching as he went. The day was clear but the Old City had its own thickness, not of heat but of intense human experience. Chomi loved it here.
The African’s turn off He Nan into Fu Yu surprised Loa Wei Fen. Fu Yu was the famous open-air antiques market. This didn’t seem to fit. Besides, it was crowded there and he could lose his prey if he was unlucky. Quickly leaving his bicycle against a post he plunged into the crowd now fifteen yards behind the black man. Only Chomi’s height allowed Loa Wei Fen to follow him. But the African moved quickly and, as fortune would have it, a motorized three-wheeled cart pulled out in front of Loa Wei Fen. By the time it was cleared there was no sign of his quarry. Quickly Loa Wei Fen leapt onto a garbage bin at the side of one of the dumpling carts. Ignoring the screams of the vendor, he craned his neck but couldn’t see Chomi. Jumping down, he raced through the crowd and ducked into the first available building. He ran through a hallway crowded with beds and up a set of steps. On the first level, he raced down a corridor crowded with more mattresses and threw open the door leading to the front room. An old woman was there with her granddaughter on her lap. She screamed as Loa Wei Fen entered the room. He whirled on her and, in a breath, was an inch from her withered face. The move shocked her into silence. Loa Wei Fen stuck his head out the window and peered in both directions. The black man was nowhere to be seen.