He had stood near the back, a pair of dark glasses supposedly hiding his identity, as she led the crowd of politicos. It was a sight Fong thought he would never see. Puritanical, up-tight Communist party officials convulsed with laughter as Fu Tsong insinuated which sexual positions were used in which rooms. From one of the ornate mahogany beds she picked up a beautiful piece of yellow silk with rather hefty knots tied into its length. Swinging it in the air she asked if anyone of the politicians could help her out as to the use of this particular gizmo. They ate it up. She was a dream of desire with just the right taint of smut.
That night she had showed him the many uses of a knotted piece of silk. And each had made him gasp with pleasure. But none more so than when he opened his eyes and saw her joy in giving him that pleasure.
He awoke to a punch on the shoulder from Wang Jun. The sun hurt his eyes and he had a crick in his neck. He looked out the window and saw nothing but fields and a steepish, grassy hill.
“Where?”
Wang Jun pointed at the hill about a half mile off. They got out of the car and began to walk. As they got closer Fong could make out a small chimney on the top of the grassy mound and the slightest of smoke tendrils against the cloudless sky. “She lives in a hill?”
“No, but her brother and his family do,” replied Wang Jun as he slid his service revolver into his hand and checked the cylinders.
Surprised to see the gun, Fong remarked, “It’s the street sweeper I asked you to pick up, right?”
“Right, Fong, but she ran. People with things to hide run. Or at least that’s been my experience, and I’m getting too old to chase them. So this,” he said, pointing to the gun, “is my way of being sure that should they try to run, I won’t get hurt following them.”
“What happened to the gentlemanly touch of a few years ago?”
“It got tired.” They were now a mere one hundred yards from the grassy hill. The door would be around the other side facing south, although “door” was probably a misnomer. An opening with a cover would be more likely. However, now with the new market reforms, a peasant could get rich, and quickly too. You never knew what you’d find at a peasant’s place. A complete Sony home entertainment system, a Jaguar convertible, a geisha-it was getting out of hand.
The grassy hills were of course man-made. They were the accumulation of the original dirt that had been removed to form the sunken rice paddies. In this part of China several of these mounds were more than eight hundred years old. They had been constantly inhabited since they were first built. Few remained. Of those that did, the truly valued ones were covered in grass like this one. They were said to be remarkably warm in winter and cool in summer and totally water-proof. Yeah, but what about the view, thought Fong.
The path led them to the south side of the hill. The other three sides were covered with freshly flooded rice paddies. Fong shivered at the thought of entering the barrow.
Their reception was chilly, to say the least. The brother, a creature not so differently textured from the thick mud that passed as soil in this part of the world, stood in the doorway and would not let them in. At first he claimed his wife needed time to dress and then he claimed that his humble abode was unworthy of such esteemed guests. Then Wang Jun shoved him hard against the side of the opening and the policemen marched into the barrow.
The first thing to hit Fong’s senses was the deep scent of the earth. The domelike shape above him was living earth supporting plants and animals. And he was beneath it. The dampness of the air was complete. Fong felt his entire body coat with sweat. But he wasn’t totally sure it was from the air. There was fear here, too. Huddled to one side of the rounded space was a youngish peasant wife and her young son. Across the way was the grandmother. There was also beautiful Danish modern furniture sitting on a silk rug that must have cost several thousand kwai. Behind the furniture were various elaborate fish tanks. Besides the usual tanks that you would see in any restaurant window containing edible fish and eels, there was also a tropical tank replete with godly floating experiments in colour and design. Next to this aquarium was a large glass enclosure sitting on a sturdy wooden cabinet. As Fong took a step toward the enclosure, a mighty serpent, its body as thick as a man’s arm, rose a full two feet up and stared at him. For a moment the great animal was completely still and then it flared its hood and lashed at the glass, sending shivers through the panes.
Wang Jun had managed to get some of the basics from the brother. Like his name. After some badgering the man even acknowledged that he knew his sister. But no, he hadn’t seen her for years, maybe twenty years. Wang Jun turned to the grandmother for confirmation of that fact and was met with an uncomprehending look.
“She speaks only Cantonese.”
“Yeah, and I’m Doctor Bethune,” Wang Jun shouted back. That made the child cry. The mother comforted him. Fong noticed that the boy was plump. A fat Chinese peasant boy-the world was changing. Wang Jun took a slow walk around the room and finally said, “You folks live pretty well. It would be a shame to have to confiscate it all as evidence in a murder case.” That clearly shook the wife, but the brother stared her down.
Fong watched all this and said nothing. From the moment he entered the barrow he sensed that there was something else present here. There was something wrong with the geography of it all. He looked toward the door opening and then to the cooking fire in the opposite wall. The smell of morning porridge was thick in the room. He walked by the kitchen area and then parted a hanging sheet revealing the family’s sleeping mattresses, each a new Japanese-style futon on its own raised wooden platform. Then he crossed back into the centre of the room and stood directly under the apex of the dome. Entrance to the south, sleeping quarters to the west, cooking fire to the north, and silk-rugged living area to the east with its rows of aquariums against the wall.
Something about the aquariums. He walked toward them. The brother shouted at him to take his shoes off before he stepped on the silk rug. He ignored the peasant’s protest and crossed toward the aquariums. Three held food fish. Two, food eels. One held tropical fish and one, the great snake. Then he turned back and faced the kitchen.
No Chinese family would keep the aquariums in the living room. They held food. They belonged in the cooking area. He looked at the aquariums and saw that their backs were painted black. The large one with the cobra was almost three feet tall and stood on a solid two-foot cabinet. For a moment, the great snake dared him. It rose up again and flared its hood. The body whipped back and forth as if waiting for its chance to smash the glass and lunge at Fong. Fong took a breath and putting his hand between the back of the glass and the wall, he pushed. The cabinet with the snake slid out smoothly revealing a tunnel, some ten yards long, heading out into the fields.
Over his shoulder he heard Wang Jun swear. Fong raced through the tunnel, the smell of sodden earth all around him. He squeezed out the far end into the knee-deep mud of a paddy. Two paddies over, a figure he took to be the street sweeper was running at top speed along the ridges between the flooded plains. Fong headed right for her, crossing the paddies as fast as he could and shouting at her to stop. She did, for one breathless instant, and then hurled herself across the adjoining paddy. At that moment, Fong’s footing gave out under him and he plunged head first into the murky water. He came up soaked and spluttering for air and continued the chase. As he leapt into the second paddy, his hands instinctively reached up to pull what he thought were fat weeds from his lip and neck but the slick stuff refused to come off. When Fong finally got a good hold of the thing on his lip he realized that the weed was alive and not merely stuck to his lip but actively moving toward his open mouth.