by Ian Hamilton
“When I spoke to Fong earlier, he said he’d stay at the office until he heard from you. We’ll call him as soon as we reach the room.”
They rode the elevator down five floors. When they exited, Uncle was surprised to see armed soldiers standing directly across from the doors. “Are there soldiers on every floor?” he asked.
“I asked the same question,” Liu said. “There are men in the garage, in the lobby, on the roof, and on the top five floors.”
Uncle’s suite was to the right of the elevators, at the far end of the hall. Liu stopped when they reached it and knocked sharply on the door. A middle-aged woman who looked vaguely familiar to Uncle opened it, smiled, and moved to one side.
“The nurse’s name is Fenfang,” Liu said. “I met her earlier. She said she looked after you for a brief time at the hospital.”
“That’s entirely possible, but I have only a vague memory of my time there,” Uncle said.
“I’m pleased to see you here,” she said.
“No one could be more pleased than I.”
“Would you like some water?” she asked.
“Director Liu told me there’s beer. If there is, I’d rather have one of those.”
“I’ll get it right away,” she said. “And how about the director?”
“I’ll have one as well,” Liu said, rolling the wheelchair into the suite. “There’s a phone on the desk and another in the bedroom. Which one do you want to use?”
“We’ll call from here. Will you dial for me?”
“Sure. I have the number written down,” Liu said, reaching into his pocket for a slip of paper and then pushing the wheelchair next to the desk. He dialled with some deliberation, waited for a few seconds, and then said, “Fong, your boss is with me and eager to speak to you.”
Uncle took the phone. “Hey. It looks like I’ll be coming home tomorrow.”
“He’s coming home tomorrow,” Fong shouted, and Uncle heard a chorus of animated voices in the background.
“Who’s there with you?”
“A handful of forty-niners. Xu was here too until about an hour ago.”
“Xu came back from Xiamen?”
“He was worried sick about you. And we also had the Wu situation to deal with.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about Wu. What happened?”
“He’s crawled back into his hole in Tai Wai. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about him for a while.”
“How did you handle the death of our man? How did you get Wu to back off?”
“Xu flew in from Xiamen first thing the morning after the killing for an executive meeting,” Fong said. “Wang wanted to go to war. He wanted an eye for an eye, and no one could really blame him, since it was one of his best young men who died. But Xu and Yu counselled caution. They both said our primary objective had to be ending or at least blunting Wu’s aggression, and that taking one of his men’s lives in return would only extend and increase the violence. Aside from getting momentary revenge, neither of them saw any good coming from that. We’d only lose more men, have our businesses disrupted, and force the police to get involved.”
“That was wise of them. And I’m sure you shared those views.”
“I sided with Wang at first, but they won me and the rest of the executive over. In fact, they even persuaded Wang to let them pursue their strategy.”
“What was the strategy?”
“The Fanling and Tai Wai gangs are about the same size. Xu said we needed to bring a larger gang to our side, not just to voice support but also willing to go to war beside us if it came to that,” Fong said. “He called Tse, whose gang is bigger than ours and Tai Wai’s put together. Tse committed to us and then went further, by calling Wu and all the other Mountain Masters. He told them he was aligning with Fanling and would bring down anyone who messed with us.”
“He and Xu have built a nice relationship.”
“Maybe they have, but Tse made it clear he was supporting us because of you,” Fong said. “He said he’s made more worry-free money in the past year than ever in his whole life, and it was your plan to go into the special economic zones that made it happen.”
“Did he know I was being held in China?”
“Yeah, we had to tell him, but Xu explained that it was a bureaucratic problem that would get sorted out in a few days. They have enough of a relationship, I guess, that Tse believed him, or at least didn’t question him. Tse’s bottom line was that he wants you left alone to come up with new ways of making money.”
Uncle heard a soft voice behind him and turned to see Fenfang offering him a Tsingtao beer. Liu already had his. He took the bottle, tapped Liu’s, and drank.
“Is everything okay in Fanling?” Liu whispered.
“It appears I’ve been worrying about nothing,” Uncle said.
“That’s a nice thing to discover.”
“Isn’t it,” Uncle said, taking another swig. He leaned back in the wheelchair, the phone still pressed to his ear. “Fong, unless there’s something urgent you want to tell me, I don’t need to hear anything more. So if there isn’t, I’ll pass the phone to Liu and you can sort out how I get back to Hong Kong tomorrow.”
“Sure, boss, give the phone to Liu,” Fong said.
( 36 )
February 1984
Yuen Long, New Territories, Hong Kong
It was seven a.m. when Uncle began the hundred-metre uphill climb that led to the Ancestor Worship Hall on Fo Look Hill in Yuen Long. In one hand he carried a small folding stool, in the other a paper bag that contained two oranges, loose tea, incense sticks, a whisk, and a cloth. It was almost four months since he’d been arrested and interrogated in Shenzhen, and only now was he able to walk without excessive pain. Still, he took his time going up the hill, taking care not to step on anything that might cause a sudden twist or turn. The path was flanked by hillside covered in shrubs, gorse, and wildflowers. On some visits he stopped to pick some of the flowers, but on this day he headed directly to the Worship Hall.
The remains of his fiancée, Lin Gui-San, were interred there — or at least his memories of her were. Her body had never been recovered from Shenzhen Bay, so Uncle had filled an urn with sand from the beach, pressed into it the jade bracelet he had intended to give her on their wedding day, and placed it in a niche with a picture of her.
As he neared the summit of the hill, he saw that the hall was empty of people. He preferred being alone there and always came early enough for that to be a possibility.
The building faced northeast, so it overlooked the sea and caught the morning sunlight. It was about thirty metres across and fifteen metres deep, with a red tile roof and sweeping curved overhangs. The front was completely open to its surroundings, and this openness and the wonderful sightlines contributed to its feng shui. A small stream ran along one side and a fountain gurgled near the entrance steps. It was a place that welcomed qi, promising peace and tranquility to the people being memorialized there.
Uncle reached the hall and climbed the five steps that led inside. He walked past the statue of a seated Buddha and another of a Taoist god. He approached the hall’s back wall, which was a mass of small alcoves and niches, each devoted to a loved one. The niches were small and could accommodate only an urn and some small mementos. Most of them also contained a photo of the deceased.
Gui-San’s niche was on the left side of the wall at about chest height. Uncle stopped in front of it, unfolded the stool, and put the paper bag on top of it. He then opened the bag, took out the small whisk broom, and approached the niche. He reached into it, removed the urn, and placed it gently on the ground. The two oranges he’d left on his previous visit were now dry and shrivelled. He took them out, and the small bowl of dry tea leaves that had been left with them. The niche was now empty except for a photo of Gui-San taken in Wuhan on her twenty-first birthday. Uncl
e had had it enlarged and laminated and had affixed it to the back wall. Under the photo, gold lettering read:
lin gui-san
born in changzhai, hubei province, 28 october 1934
died near hong kong, 28 june 1959
forever loved
forever missed
Uncle swept the floor of the niche with the whisk, returned it to the bag, and took out the cloth. He wet it in the fountain and returned to the niche. He wiped away the dust and grime that had collected on the photo and the floor of the niche, and then he bent down carefully and cleaned the urn. When that was done, he put the urn back into the niche and then placed the two oranges and fresh tea in the small bowl next to it.
He turned and went back to the stool. He put the whisk and cloth back in the bag and extracted six sticks of incense. Facing the niche, he lit them with his faded black crackle Zippo lighter — the lighter that had belonged to Gui-San’s father and was her most prized possession. He placed three sticks into slots in the front of the niche and then held the others between his palms. He raised his hands to his chest, lowered his head, and began to pray. He prayed until the sticks began to burn his flesh. Then he stopped, put what was left of the incense into a receptacle, and sat on the stool facing the niche.
“This was the first year I didn’t visit you on your birthday. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t make it. I hope it never happens again,” he said to her. “I was in Fanling but I had trouble walking. In fact I needed Fong’s help to get from my apartment to the office every morning. I guess I could have asked him to come here with me, and I thought about it, but this is our personal place, and I want to safeguard the privacy it gives us.
“There, that’s said. I feel a bit better now. It was bothering me because I could imagine you wondering where I was, and I could imagine you worrying about me, and that’s the last thing I want. Although, to be entirely honest, it wouldn’t have been misplaced to worry about me. I was in a difficult place and a difficult situation. There were times when I thought I was going to die and I felt despair, but whenever I did, I thought of joining you, and the blackness lifted.”
Uncle felt his eyes moisten, and rubbed them. He reached into his pocket, took out his pack of Marlboros, and lit a cigarette. He took a puff, blowing the smoke to one side, away from the niche. “Aside from the possibility that I could die, the experience affected me in one other important way,” he continued. “I don’t know if you were pleased when I told you a few years ago that we were going to invest in China. I told you I had my doubts initially — some of them were emotional, because of my hatred for the Communists, but practically I was also concerned about the security of our investments. There’s no law in China, or maybe I should say there’s a legal system that can be changed to suit whatever circumstance the government decides is important on any particular day. I thought that by aligning myself with people who made decisions for the government I would be able to protect us. What I didn’t factor in strongly enough was that those people could change and become the problem.”
He paused, ground the cigarette butt under his heel, and put it in the paper bag. “Peng was foolish. It’s one thing to accept payment for services rendered, but it’s another to flaunt the fact that you have lots of money in front of people who don’t. The government went after him, and I’m sure he told them everything he’d ever done. I thought we were still safe, though, because there must be dozens, if not hundreds of people like us who paid him bribes, and it would have been self-defeating for the officials to prosecute people who were investing in the zone. But then politics intervened and the PLA was brought into the picture. I’m certain Peng mentioned my name and linked it to the Liu family, and I became a target because of that connection.
“I’ve mentioned to you before that Liu Leji’s father, Huning, is a member of the Standing Politburo Committee. What I didn’t know is how close he is to Deng Xiaoping and how unhappy some Committee members are with the direction Deng is taking China in. I found out quickly enough, when the PLA picked me up,” he said. “They wanted me to confirm that I was doing business with the Lius. If I did, they promised to send me back to Hong Kong and leave my businesses alone. I didn’t believe them, but even if I had, I would never have been able to bring myself to do it. I can’t think of anything worse than betraying a trust that’s been placed in you, especially when it’s done not blindly but after a lot of thought, and with full knowledge of how horrendous the consequences could be if that confidence was ever betrayed. I knew I’d rather die. But obviously I didn’t. My luck held, Gui-San, and an amazing thing happened.”
He lit another cigarette, took two quick drags, and then put it out. “I stopped smoking for a while when I was being held in China. It wasn’t voluntary, but it did wean me physically from the urge to smoke. I even managed to avoid it for a few weeks after my return to Fanling. But then I went to dinner with Fong and Xu, and when Fong offered me a cigarette, I took it. It was almost a reflex reaction, and so was stopping to buy a pack of Marlboros on the way back to my apartment. Now I’m smoking as much as I ever have,” he said, then paused. “I don’t know why I just mentioned that. I was talking about something amazing, wasn’t I. Well, it did involve Xu, so at least there’s a bit of a connection.
“Xu is leaving Fanling with his family, and I hope it’s for good. I know that sounds like I’m happy he’s leaving, but I’m not. I’m happy for him. His dream has always been to go back to Shanghai, and now he can — openly, with the approval of and even some help from the Communists. How did that happen?” he said, and smiled.
“I met Premier Deng, and we talked man-to-man. He’s small, Gui-San — in fact, you’re taller than him — and he looks like a strong wind might blow him over. But there’s a strength to him that I couldn’t have imagined. He has survived everything the Communists have thrown at him, yet there’s no bitterness or anxiousness to him. He’s a man who is certain about the rightness of his path, who will keep pursuing it regardless of the opposition, and who radiates confidence and a calmness that says he will inevitably prevail. I’ll never like the Communists, but I don’t hate them as much as I used to. And I can admire and respect a man like Deng without having to agree with everything he represents. Strangely, that’s what Liu Huning said to Deng about me.
“So our Chinese ventures are intact and are now expanding. I’ve tried to be careful, to be cautious, but we’re getting to the point where we’re in so deep we might never get out. That should frighten me but it doesn’t, because I think — like Deng — some things are inevitable. The clock is ticking towards the day China will reclaim Hong Kong, and there’s no resisting the tidal wave that will come when it does. I want to be ready for that wave, to be positioned to not just survive it but to prosper from it. Setting up businesses in China was the first step, making alliances with people in power was the second, and returning Xu to Shanghai is the third, and possibly the most important for the Heaven and Earth Society,” he said.
Hearing noises behind him, Uncle stood up. “There are people coming up the hill. I should let them have as peaceful a time with their ancestors as I’ve had with you,” he said. He stepped towards the niche, kissed the tips of his fingers, and pressed them against the photo of Gui-San. “I love you. I’ll be back next month. I want to stay close to home for a while.”
He picked up the paper bag, folded the stool, and turned towards the exit. The morning sun drilled into his eyes and he was forced to cover them with the back of his hand. “What a beautiful morning to spend time with your loved ones,” he said to the man and woman approaching.
Acknowledgements
Writing about Shenzhen in the early 1980s is not an easy task. What was essentially a collection of villages with a population of 35,000 is now — forty years later — a city with about eighteen million inhabitants. That growth began in 1980–81, but really exploded in the mid-to-late ’80s. For the purposes of my plot, however, I’ve sta
rted it sooner. I have been true to Premier Deng’s economic strategy for Shenzhen and the other special economic zones; all I’ve done is make it more successful in a quicker fashion.
I am sure that some readers will find the idea that a director of customs would start his own warehouse business and direct customers to it a bit far-fetched. I admit that it seems outlandish but in truth, when I was doing business in Shenzhen, the customs department was running its own customs brokerage house, and the military was directly involved in any number of businesses.
Now, my thanks.
To my first readers, and then the advance-copy readers — you are all appreciated to the utmost degree: my wife, Lorraine, Robin Spano, Catherine Rosebrugh, John Kruithof, Ashok Ramchandani, Caleena Chiang, Christina Sit, and Carol Shetler.
To Doug Richmond, my editor, and Maria Golikova, the managing editor, at House of Anansi Press. I have been blessed with great editors from the beginning of this journey. They never fail to make a book better.
To my agent, Bruce Westwood, for his support and steadfast care when some days it must seem more sensible to sit at the farm with a glass of wine.
And to everyone who took the time to email me or talk to me at some event. When as a writer you sit alone for hours and days on end, you can forget that there are people out there who are eager to find out where your stories go. Keep the emails coming; they never fail to motivate me.
IAN HAMILTON is the author of thirteen novels in the Ava Lee series and two novels in the Lost Decades of Uncle Chow Tung series. His books have been shortlisted for numerous prizes, including the Arthur Ellis Award, the Barry Award, and the Lambda Literary Prize, and are national bestsellers. BBC Culture named Hamilton one of the ten mystery/crime writers from the past thirty years who should be on your bookshelf. The Ava Lee series is being adapted for television.