The Daughters of Henry Wong

by Harrison Young

  “Really? They’ve been talking to me. And they speak to Song in both English and Mandarin.”

  It was my turn to feel embarrassed.

  “How was London, dear?”

  “Tokyo. Yes, I think it may be possible to recruit a friendly investor.”

  “Is that why you went? Why do that at this point?”

  “It would tip the balance. We can issue new shares up to nineteen point nine percent of what is now outstanding without a shareholder vote. And with the new shareholder backing us, we’d have forty-three percent of the new total under our effective control – I’m excluding Zhang from that – and it would be that much harder for Chao Yinhang to reach fifty percent. They’d need to issue more shares, too, because they’re maxed out for cash already.”

  “Perhaps we should talk about this later,” said Amanda.

  “Julia has an interest too.”

  “Well, yes, all right, but I can’t face the arithmetic this late in the day. Why do twenty-five, seven and twenty add up to forty-three percent?”

  “New shares go in the denominator too,” said Julia.

  Amanda registered that. “Anyway, it’s stupid. But we can talk about it in the morning. I’m going to bed. You haven’t by any chance seen my jade and diamond earrings? One of them is missing. You don’t suppose that English girl with the breasts really did swallow it?”

  I pulled the wandering earring out of my jacket pocket and handed it to her. “I must have picked it up at the end of that dinner party.”

  “No doubt,” said Amanda. “There’s quite a lot I don’t remember about that evening – except that Mercury said I was quite right to chase those illegals away. He says there is a new ordinance being considered. You heard what he said, Julia. We will be deemed to be breaking the law if we fail to determine that anyone we employ has a legal right of abode. I want you to take a look at Song’s visa, by the way.”

  “She has an identity card, Amanda. She’s been here fifteen years. You were a girl when Henry hired her, remember?”

  “Well, I’ve never liked her.”

  “But, Amanda,” said Julia, “she’s so good. In New York, people would kill for a housekeeper like Song.”

  “Well, she’s going to have to work even harder from now on. No more intellectual waiters.”

  “What?” I said. For a moment it felt as though she’d overheard Serena on the beach in Bali. I wondered if she knew where I’d been.

  “I caught that one who was here around the time of the party reading our newspapers,” Amanda continued.

  “Hong Kong newspapers are hardly intellectual. You read them yourself.”

  “He was reading the editorials. And so do I, as a matter of fact.” She stood up and went to the door. “You can entertain Julia, can’t you, darling?”

  We listened to the sound of Amanda’s door closing.

  “Have you eaten?” said Julia. “I can scramble you an egg if Song is busy with Philip and Tommy.”

  “Thanks. I ate on the plane. Would you like a drink?”

  “I’ll keep you company.”

  I made two gin and tonics and we went into the library, which was farther from the bedrooms. It had started raining.

  “You like our weather?” I said.

  “I love it. I feel like I’m in a Sherlock Holmes movie.”

  “So Mercury came to call?”

  “Very good tailor. He reminds me of some of my clients.”

  “He could probably use your advice.”

  “Interesting that you say that. Have you read Chao Yinhang’s financials?”

  “No. Should I?” I replied – and realized immediately that yes, I should have.

  “Hong Kong has been enjoying boom times, right?”

  “Bad period a few years ago with the Asian Financial Crisis, buffered by the liquidity Beijing pumped in before the Handover.”

  “O.K., but for the last decade, overall, things have been pretty good. During which time Chao Yinhang’s non-performing loan ratio has risen steadily. And their net interest margin has been increasing for the past eight years.”

  “Ours hasn’t. We’ve been forced to bring down our mortgage rates to meet the competition from Bank of China in particular.”

  “What conclusion should you draw from that?”

  I thought for a moment. Spreads going up. Bad loans going up. “They are making a lot of risky loans, on which they can charge above-market rates.”

  “Go to the head of the class.”

  I smiled. “Is this how you treat your clients?”

  “Rich men have sensitive egos. It has to be their idea.”

  “I can use all the advice I can get.”

  Julia seemed to take a deep breath. “In that case,” she said, “I think Amanda needs attention. Maybe you should take her to Bali. Or somewhere glamorous. She was entirely too fluttery when Mr. Chao paid his call. And, oh my God, I thought I would die when Philip called me ‘newmommie.’ It’s a good thing I’m staying here rather than the Peninsula as I planned, or I’m sure she’d think I went to Tokyo with you.”

  She took a gulp of her gin and tonic. “May I have another, please?” I took the glass. “I mean, um, let’s just say Amanda is…jittery. She’s quarreling with Song. Or rather, she’s rude to Song. Song never responds. She isn’t rude to me – Song, I mean. Song is elaborately polite, which makes it clear she wishes I would get back on the airplane that brought me. Thanks.”

  She took another gulp of her drink. I thought about Song. My showing up with Julia wouldn’t have been part of her plan – whatever her plan was.

  “And, Wendy,” Julia went on, “just to be open and honest, if you weren’t my brother, or whatever you are, I would get on an airplane with you, and go anywhere, which I say not as a come-on but so you understand that Amanda has to sense that I find you attractive – there isn’t anything wrong with my saying that – and sensing it only makes her more…edgy. I see this sort of situation a lot: too much money, husband preoccupied, bored wife looking to pick a fight, looking for an excuse to have an affair. Amanda is quite bright, you know. She hasn’t your education, but she is quick as a terrier. Did you see how she picked up on the percentages?”

  “She partly did,” I said.

  “Amanda doesn’t do this for a living, Wendy. She’s being coached…presumably by the dashing Mercury Chao…and just possibly as pillow talk.” She took another gulp. “I better go to bed before I get in any deeper.”

  I listened to Julia’s footsteps in the hall, and her door closing.

  Goodbye in Bali had been a little like that. “Wendy, be careful about your wife. And get this earring back in the safe. I took it to see if I could. I’m a novice, you know. They teach us to be pickpockets and thieves, but the sensation is very different when it’s for real.”

  “I liked the sensation of you.”

  “Sorry if I overdid it. Now go get on your plane.”

  I finished my drink – I was still on the first one – and went to check on my sons. They were both asleep.

  So, they could talk. That was good news.

  The gecko was scrabbling around among the twigs and grass inside his shoebox home, which sat on the table between their beds. Song had put a rubber band around it to keep the lid on, and poked holes in the side for air. I would have to find a book about lizards.

  When I had time, I would have to think about why my sons had never spoken to me. The picture of a monster with red suspenders came to mind. Were they afraid of me? That seemed unlikely. I was fundamentally absurd, tall but laughable, stumbling around Asia with an earring in my pocket. I didn’t see how I could frighten anyone. When I had time, I would have to talk to my sons – no, play with them – and see what happened. They would have to get to know me. I hoped that could be managed without tears.

  I went into the kitchen with my glass, and then down the steps that terrified Amanda. I knocked on Song’s door, and she opened it. She was still in her uniform, and had evidently been
reading the newspapers.

  “House asleep,” I said in Mandarin.

  “You stupid wife,” she replied in pidgin. “Tell monkey Chao about servants. Very bad. Servants need friends same as Henry Wong, same as Song.” She was extremely angry.

  “I know,” I said. “I have started working from Henry’s office. Cedric Fung told me to ask Catherine for any matters that Henry normally attends to himself. We will cope.”

  She let out a breath and just looked at me. “You good man,” she said finally.

  It struck me that Song was depending on me just as much as the rest were. This was the “burden of command” that my grandfather liked to talk about, and which I had always dismissed. Just going into the bank was exhausting. All those furtive, hopeful glances. And Catherine, who was too proud to be furtive, looking at me, appraising my endurance. And there was no one to talk to about it – none of the, what was it now, four women in my life, if you counted Serena. But I’d never been good at talking to girls – as my wasteland of a marriage demonstrated.

  A thought occurred to me. “Do you speak only radio English to the boys?”

  “I must,” she said. “They must be proper gentlemen – like Wendy Lee.” She paused. “Like Mercury Chao.”

  “Don’t say that,” I told her, eliciting a sly smile. The Chaos and the Wongs were enemies. Song wanted to be sure I remembered that.

  After a moment she went on, in the mixture of dictions I was coming to know. Song had begun to communicate from the moment Henry went missing, I realized, using whatever words or accents she could. Either she had a plan that I was part of or she was counting on me to come up with a plan.

  “Easy part over. Wife crazy, Other Daughter smart. She plays with the little boys but her eyes are open. You must send her back to New York.” She paused for a moment. “Small man Sam called. He asked when you returning from Tokyo.”

  “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” I turned to go.

  “How Tokyo?”

  “Not sure,” I said. Then another thought floated up: “Who is Su Ling?”

  I guess she’d been expecting the question for a long time, because she answered right away: “Henry girlfriend. Never mention. Dead.”

  The rain had stopped, so I told Song I was going for a walk.

  “Jet lag,” I explained.

  I headed slowly up toward Barker Road until the steps started, and then back, three or four times. Mist swirled around me. Walking in a cloud may have been an odd way to clear my brain, but I had to get out of the Castle. I needed a little distance from my dependents.

  So Amanda was sleeping with Mercury. Julia was too polite to suggest it unless she was pretty sure. She’d seen them together, as I really never had. How long had it gone on – five weeks, five years? What a dunce I was. And Amanda was telling Mercury everything she knew.

  I felt a pang of guilt. There could be no happy ending to an affair with Mercury. His dynastic marriage to Lillian was essential to his position in Hong Kong society. Amanda was smart enough to know that. She had to be either very lonely or very angry. Probably both. I knew how those emotions worked. Anger could keep loneliness at bay for a while.

  Amanda had effectively killed the intelligent waiter by telling Mercury about him. Mercury would have loved being able to tell Beijing’s Hong Kong representative about him.

  In fairness to Amanda, I should say it wasn’t exactly that she didn’t care about our sons. Song had made them inaccessible. Nannies can do that, I suppose. Amanda gave up on breast-feeding almost immediately – a decision Song probably encouraged. As each milestone passed for Philip and Tommy – sitting up, first tooth, that sort of thing – Amanda didn’t get told, or not right away. And each such bit of “neglect” made it harder for Amanda to insist on a role in their upbringing. It was Song’s way of getting back at Amanda for being spoiled and beautiful, I supposed, for having a husband, for having children. Being spoiled and beautiful, Amanda was no match for the cunning and resolute Song. Being a leading tai-tai, she had in any event little time to devote to the struggle. And as our marriage melted away like the ice in a drink on a hot Hong Kong night, Amanda abdicated completely.

  I have no such excuses.

  13

  Sam summoned me to the China Club for coffee late Monday morning. What did I think I was doing going to Tokyo? Everyone now knew that I’d tried to sell 20 percent of the bank.

  “Who told you that?” I said.

  “Mosquito.” He handed me a copy.

  I had attained the honor of a caricature. “Big Wendy Visit His Geisha?” read the headline over the drawing.

  “Simon told me I would need to be reckless.”

  “No. He said ‘ruthless.’ And not yet.”

  I didn’t feel like being bullied, so I told Sam he was clever to know you could get morning coffee at the China Club, that I hadn’t known that, and by the way, did he know the names of all the waiters in Hong Kong?

  “Still working on it,” he said, softening slightly. “You want some dim sum?”

  The China Club is one of Hong Kong’s jewels. Lodged at the top of the old Bank of China Building, it is an exercise in flamboyance. There are birds in a cage in the front-hall sort of room you enter when you step off the elevator, and enormous leather chairs to lounge in while you wait for your guests. An open stairwell with an elegant metalwork banister rises three floors to the roof. The walls throughout the Club are covered with modern Chinese paintings, mostly in bright colors, mostly with thinly veiled political content. The main dining room, where Sam and I were seated, is, except for the paintings, an homage to a Shanghai tea house. It has booths around the sides, each with a diminutive 1930s General Electric fan screwed to the table top. The food isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough – and you tend not to notice because it is so brilliantly presented. The chopsticks are sterling silver, with the characters for “China Club” stamped at the top. The waiters wear a stylized version of Red Guards uniforms, a touch that sometimes troubles guests who experienced the real thing. The men’s room has drawings on its walls and a brand of soap with a distinctive smell I have not encountered elsewhere. Drying ones hands on the perfect towels, it is possible to imagine there being compliant beauties waiting outside the door. Upstairs there are private dining rooms, and the “Long March Bar,” which is decorated with propaganda posters. Also a spacious library that was curated by an Englishman. You cannot take a book out, but you can sit there all day and read. The Club is a club in the sense that you have to pay a substantial fee to join, and you can tell yourself you “belong,” but members can lend their membership cards to friends, and I am unaware of any governing “committee.” It is the creation of an extraordinarily imaginative man named David Tang, who speaks English with a perfect accent and goes around town in traditional Chinese clothes. Some people laughed when he got a knighthood – “services to style?” they said – but I thought it was totally appropriate. Why should style-makers get less recognition than leg spinners? One assumes Sir David owns the Club, but he sold his eponymous clothing store, so perhaps he has taken in silent partners. The cost of the place would be enormous, simply as real estate.

  “Where is Simon, anyway?” I asked.

  “In London, I assume,” he said, putting three steamed dumplings onto my plate. “He only shows up for the glory parts. Your humble Canadian does the real work.”

  “So why is Mercury taking so much risk?” I was eager to demonstrate that I had a modicum of tactical awareness.

  “What’s the risk?” said Sam.

  “He might lose. He might wrinkle his suit. But seriously, in making an unsolicited bid he’s doing without an opportunity for due diligence on Pearl River.”

  “Would he find anything if he had a chance to rip up the carpets?”

  I decided Sam didn’t need to know about Henry’s special loans. I suppose I needed to know something Sam didn’t.

  “No,” I said. “But Mercury doesn’t know that. Banks are opaque. You can hi
de bad loans for a number of years. And Mercury knows that because he’s doing it himself.”

  “So you do know something about the business,” Sam said in mock surprise.

  I replied with a traditional obscenity.

  “What about your auditors?”

  “Our auditors are paragons of virtue, Sam, but you’ve read what accounting firms say in their opinions? ‘We’ve checked the control system the bank uses, and we think it should have caught anything significant. Oh, and the numbers add up.’ They don’t review many loan files – just enough to see that we have files, and that we review credits each year ourselves. So if we were actively dishonest, and intelligent about it, we could hide quite large problems and the auditors wouldn’t know.”

  “But Henry is honest,” said Sam. “Mercury knows that.”

  “And so is Mercury supposed to be.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “A glance at Chao Yinhang’s financials will tell you that they have been taking a lot of risk in the past few years. Non-performing loans up. Margins up. Growing too fast.” I felt guilty claiming Julia’s insights as my own, but as Serena had told me, guilty was a feeling I needed to get used to.

  “And?”

  “Maybe Mercury has a hole in his balance sheet,” I continued. “Just because he’s reporting more bad loans doesn’t mean he’s reporting all of them. Maybe the reason he is willing to do a hostile bid, and take our condition at face value, is that he knows it has to be better than Chao Yinhang’s true condition. Maybe he needs a merger to save himself.”

  “I’ll sniff around the market,” said Sam. “See if anyone else agrees.”

  “Do you have an alternative theory – beyond the satisfaction of defeating a rival?”

  “I’ve assumed he was fixated on the kudos he’d get in Beijing. Henry doesn’t have many fans there, I gather. And Mercury probably figures enough pressure can be brought to bear on Big Wendy – and Mrs. Wendy – that he ultimately agrees to a deal.”

  Mrs. Wendy. I wasn’t ready to tell Sam my wife was sleeping with the enemy, though I knew I would have to do so pretty soon. “An agreed deal would mean we got to do due diligence on Chao, right?”