The Tenth Witness

by Leonard Rosen

  The frontal assault left me no choice. I had rescheduled my meetings for Isaac’s funeral, and Schmidt’s plan would work. In fact, I was as curious to see where my steel anchor beams had come from as Schmidt was to see the platform.

  When we boarded, he turned left off the jetway into the land of linen and seats that reclined into beds. I turned right and found my own seat well to the rear, in cattle class, beside a woman who apologized for the two-year-old on her lap with a runny nose. “Ear infection,” she said.

  During takeoff, as the cabin pressure changed, the child wailed. Just my luck, I thought. The seven-hour time difference when I landed in Hong Kong would be difficult enough to manage if I were rested. The mother was no happier. “I can’t get another dose of medicine into him for six hours,” she said.

  Every seat on the plane was taken.

  At altitude, I ordered wine and asked for earplugs. I’d pulled a file on the parts manufacturer I’d be meeting and set it on the tray table before me. But the boy, tugging at his ears, was miserable. The mother bounced him and did her best to distract him. She apologized several times.

  “Don’t,” I said. “I’ll get my turn. I hope.”

  Which is when I smiled.

  How many times had Freda or Isaac come upstairs to nurse me when my parents were off working? There’s nearly a luxury in getting sick, though not seriously sick, as a child. The adults in my life doted on me. They smoothed my hair and dabbed cool compresses on my forehead and chest. Freda brought soup from downstairs. Isaac read to me, or we played chess.

  I searched my briefcase for one of his treasures that I knew well, a hand-carved knight. I made sure the child saw it as I stood the horse on its legs. I could hear Isaac speaking as clearly as if he were perched on my shoulder. Are you sure you want to move your Queen this far, Henri? Study the board. Think it through.

  He had carved every piece of that set. I asked him why when he could have bought chess pieces at a store. That’s when he gave me a story.

  I once had another set like this, he began. In those days, we had to make our own pieces, and we drew our boards in the dirt so we could erase them quickly when someone came. It took months, but I found pieces of wood and used stones to smooth and shape them. I made a little sack for the pieces. It was a long time ago.

  Nine or ten at the time, I didn’t understand that he’d gone back to the war for that story. I didn’t understand, in fact, until the long flight to China. Where had he made it? At the camps? Had he played chess with his own sons before the Nazis shot them? I pranced the hand-carved horse across my files up to the very edge of the fold-down table, rearing as if the rider had come to a cliff. I could feel the child watching.

  Then why didn’t you use a knife, Uncle . . . to carve the pieces? It would have been easier.

  I remember his smile and that he touched my cheek. Because the Lord decided it would be better to shape the pieces with stones. I could smell his aftershave; his fingers were stained with shoe polish. Keep it, he said, handing me the horse. I’ll carve another.

  I backed the horse up across my files and pranced through a series of high, looping arcs. By this point, the child had stopped crying. He watched me jump the horse through a last arc . . . and into his lap. He sat up and began to play. The mother’s head went slack against the seat with relief.

  She mouthed the words Thank You, and we all got some sleep.

  THE TRAVELERS in the customs hall at Hong Kong International Airport stood queued before eight of twenty active kiosks, each staffed with a control agent who sat on a high stool behind a raised counter. I had nothing to declare and nothing to hide, yet found myself nervous just the same. I scratched my chin, which didn’t itch, and checked a watch I’d already reset to local time in an effort to look unconcerned. Behind me, Schmidt was pushing a flatbed hand truck loaded with his own suitcase and three large cardboard boxes, which I had helped him load from the baggage terminal.

  The customs agent waved me through after a few routine questions, without opening my suitcase.

  Schmidt was not so lucky.

  “Your boxes,” said the agent. “I will open them.” The officer was a young man with jet black hair and a clipped British accent, his uniform starched and spotless. “What’s inside, Sir?”

  “Consumer electronics,” said Schmidt. “I have a card here with the names of two officers on the customs staff. They’re expecting me. Please find either of these men, and we can make quick work of your inspection—with all due respect, of course.”

  The agent read the card without touching it, then unzipped the suitcase as if Schmidt hadn’t spoken. I watched the exchange from the far side of the kiosk, behind a bright yellow line which signified that I stood, officially, in Her Majesty’s Colony of Hong Kong. The agent removed a shirt from Schmidt’s suitcase and shook out its folds. He poked through undergarments and unzipped a toiletries kit.

  Schmidt watched in disbelief.

  The agent re-zipped the suitcase and looked up. “Tell me about these electronics. What kind?” He sliced open one of the boxes along a seam. “I see glass in here—it looks like a small television. There is also a keyboard built onto the unit. It looks like a typewriter. What is this?”

  Schmidt leaned across the counter and presented his card a second time. “Contact one of these men.”

  “Do the other boxes contain the same items, Sir?”

  Schmidt was losing control. I could see the veins in his neck.

  “What is this?” said the agent.

  “A computer.”

  The man looked at him. “I’ve worked with computers at the University of Hong Kong. Computers take up entire rooms and use card files for data. I see no mechanism for accepting card files. And the unit is too small. It cannot be a computer, Sir. I ask again, what is this?”

  “It’s called a personal computer,” said Schmidt. “It’s new, from America. I’m bringing it to show some people here.”

  The agent read something from inside the box. “What is this Apple?”

  “A computer company. American.”

  “What are you intending to do with this Apple in Hong Kong?”

  “Business,” said Schmidt. “Call your supervisor!”

  “We will open the other cartons now. And I must ask you to keep your voice down.” He used his box cutter and read off two more names: “Tandy. Commodore. These are also computers?” The man placed a call and spoke to someone in Chinese, then re-inspected Schmidt’s passport. “Mr. Schmidt,” he said, flipping pages. “You travel extensively. Uganda, Cambodia, and Libya in the last six months. And with some regularity to Argentina. Why, may I ask?”

  “Is this any of your business?”

  “It is. This is our Customs Hall. I ask questions, you answer.”

  “Have I done something to offend you?”

  “Answer the question, Sir.”

  “I live in Argentina. I work in Germany. I visit my wife. Satisfied?”

  “I see a visa here to enter the People’s Republic of China in three days. Why?”

  “Business.”

  “Relating to computers?”

  “Sir,” said Schmidt, making a futile attempt at civility, “I’m a businessman traveling on business. Any more questions will have to come from your superior. I gave you two names.” He crossed his arms and waited.

  The impasse broke when a man in uniform, eyes puffy and hair dyed too black for his age, approached the kiosk. Without a word, he read Schmidt’s card. He addressed his subordinate, then excused himself. The young man backed away.

  Beyond the kiosks, passengers admitted to the British colony followed a walkway through a set of double doors that opened to a broad receiving area in the main terminal. An enormous banner read: W E L C O M E T O H O N G K O N G. Down the corridor, I saw two uniformed agents and smelled a strong scent of Turkish tobacco that cast me back to the cafés of my student years. A tall man in a linen suit was leaning against the wall along the corridor, smoking wh
at could only have been Gauloises.

  How unlikely that a French cigarette would be my first scent of the Orient! But that earthy, acrid smell confirmed what Alec had told me: East collided with West in Hong Kong more violently than anywhere else in the world. “A total mash-up,” he called it. “And frequently not pretty.”

  The lanky smoker must have been a Frenchman who’d lost his luggage in transit, for he hadn’t yet stepped beyond the exit into the arrival hall, and he had no suitcase. Waiting for news, I figured. Schmidt was waiting, too, so I walked down the hall and introduced myself to a presumed countryman.

  “Comment ça va?”

  He looked up, cigarette dangling from his mouth.

  “I couldn’t help but notice your Gauloises.”

  He reached for a cellophaned package.

  I held up my hands. “No—no, thank you. I tried once but couldn’t stop coughing. At school all the intellectuals were smoking them. They were full of themselves.” I gestured at holding a cigarette between my thumb and index finger, palm up. “Henri Poincaré,” I said, extending a hand. “It feels good to speak French.”

  “There’s a mathematician—”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Renard Malet. You’re coming from—?”

  “Holland, mostly . . . I’ve been working there. I live in Paris.”

  He ground out the cigarette on the tile floor and lit another after tapping it against his watch crystal. “I represent a men’s clothier in Paris,” said Malet. “We’re searching for talent in Hong Kong to make custom suits and shirts for our clients. We fax our partners here precise measurements. That’s the key, you see. Eighteen different measurements, not just neck size and sleeve length. Do you need a suit?”

  I didn’t.

  “Well, if you do. Eighteen data points. We specify fabric. I take samples back home with each trip, and our tailors in Hong Kong send me finished suits and shirts at one-tenth the cost of custom tailoring in France. The workmanship here is as good or better than what you find anywhere in the world.

  “Take this suit, for instance. My measurements are on file here. I made a call and five days later I received an airmailed bundle. Voilà—and a perfect fit! It’s a new world, Monsieur Poincaré. Every type of business is going global. I’d hate to be a tailor living in Toulouse or Lyon just now. In one year or ten, he’ll lose his job. It’s just a matter of time.”

  In fact, I had noticed Malet’s suit: a tightly woven linen, a blend of cotton and some other fabric that kept the material from wrinkling. With good lines, too, a handsome product.

  Malet was a large, rangy man with bear-paw hands. In profile, he had the face one finds on old Roman coins, with a straight nose and strong chin. “Quite a racket over there with the old man,” he said. “I saw you waiting for him. Are you two connected? Is he in trouble of some sort?”

  “I know him slightly. I’m not exactly with him, Monsieur—”

  “Renard, please.”

  “We met a few days ago. We were on the same flight. He invited me to share his ride into the city, which I’ll do if I don’t fall asleep standing up talking to you.”

  The senior customs agent returned to Schmidt’s kiosk. “So sorry for the confusion,” he said. He spoke a few hushed words to his subordinate.

  The younger man nodded. Revealing nothing beyond dead-eyed obedience, he said: “Welcome to Hong Kong, Sir. Enjoy your stay. I apologize for my rudeness.”

  “That’s my cue,” I said. “He’s through. I’ll need to—”

  “Take my card,” said Malet. “This way if you need a suit, you can contact me. It’s a local number for Paris. I promise you won’t walk very far in this city without someone grabbing you to ask if you need custom-made clothes. I know the better tailors. And remember, eighteen measurements. It makes all the difference. Call if you have the need or if you have a sudden craving to speak French. I’m staying at the Peninsula. We’ll catch a drink.”

  “Herr Schmidt is, too. The Peninsula. Perhaps you’d like a ride?”

  Malet declined. “I came to meet someone,” he said, “but it seems I missed him. I’ve got my own transportation.” He left quickly through the double doors before it occurred to me to wonder why the guards permitted him to wait inside a restricted area.

  Schmidt trundled his suitcase and boxes across the yellow line. “We’re off,” he said. “Damned Chinks.”

  twelve

  Schmidt was pleased to announce that he had arranged an adventure for us. An old oil tanker slated for scrapping, the Eagle Maiden, swung at anchor a kilometer offshore. Through a translator, he had spoken with the captain via radio, and the Maiden would wait for us if we cared to ride her onto the beach at his breaking yard. “I’ve wanted to do this for years,” he said. “It’s an opportunity not to be missed. What do you think?”

  Ride an oil tanker onto a beach? I could only agree.

  His driver headed north, then east, in search of a water taxi.

  Away from the high-rent district of the Peninsula Hotel, the streets narrowed and the sidewalks teemed with people who wore jeans and work shirts and uniforms, anything but suits. These were the workers who serviced Hong Kong’s towers and glittery hotels, very likely the ones who would fill the manufacturing plant I hoped to build for a company in Stuttgart. After an hour or so of crawling through traffic, Schmidt determined we were close enough, and he leapt from the car to find a pier and a boat that would ferry us out to the Maiden.

  Stepping from the limousine was like stepping into a fast-running current. The crowd pushed us past live chicken markets and butchers who hung geese and dog carcasses in window displays. Street vendors called to me, jangling cheap watches. Bead sellers were jammed next to fishmongers who shared stalls with jade merchants, tailors, and import-export companies where men in undershirts yelled into phones. Women sat on boxes shooing flies off carp, the buckets at their feet alive with eels. Everywhere, men and women smoked rank-smelling, filterless cigarettes. Drivers leaned on horns. At the windows in sagging buildings, old men on cheap folding seats picked food from their teeth, watching the show unfold. Scooters zipped around idling cars and trucks. The air was thick enough to make me spit, a soup of diesel and tobacco and pork sizzling on coal-fired braziers. It was an assault on all five senses.

  Schmidt found his pier and negotiated a ride out to the tanker, using a map of the harbor with the Maiden’s position circled, a wad of cash, and hand gestures. And then I was on a boat again, a snug, freshly painted tender headed for open water.

  Soon enough, so soon I didn’t have a chance to get sick, we saw a reddish-brown object that rose in the distance much like the islands off the Kowloon Peninsula. But as we drew near, what had looked like a mountain resolved into a supertanker as long as the Eiffel Tower was high.

  “Single-hulled,” Schmidt shouted above the wind. “Twenty-eight years, a good run but not worth refitting. The owner sold it to us for two million US. We’ll break her down and make four million after all is said and done. A tidy business.”

  Our boat approached the massive ship. Without its cargo of oil, she rode a full ten stories above the sea, with the bridge four stories above that. We were ants approaching an elephant.

  It was no easy climb, up a narrow, rusted-out ladder—a steel hull hard to my right and thin air and a likely fatal fall to my left. Schmidt scrambled right up. Onboard, a gap-toothed Malaysian dressed in a faded blue uniform waved. I greeted him in French; Schmidt tried German. The man pointed to himself and said “Doud” in Malay, something else in Chinese, and finally “David” in halting English. He motioned for us to follow, and I was amazed to see him mount a bicycle—a bicycle!—wending his way through a grillwork of broad-gauge pipes, back to the bridge. The stench of crude oil stung my nostrils. We walked for ten minutes to reach the stern. It was like crossing the back of a city block, all the more strange because, as an engineer, I well understood the principle of water displacement. Still, I could scarcely believe how all this
steel could float.

  We reached the bridge. Doud led us up another stairwell to a rusting steel door with a thick glass window. He pulled hard, the door swung wide, and he addressed a short, sallow-faced man.

  Captain Lee bowed to Schmidt, his employer, then spoke Chinese to Doud, who in turn spoke English to me. I translated to German. Mr. Lee, I learned, had just lately come aboard the Maiden. Others piloted supertankers across the oceans. Mr. Lee specialized in the controlled grounding of large ships, and he welcomed us for the Maiden’s final voyage.

  Doud explained the maneuver. “When the wind is up and the seas are heavy, it is delicate work,” he said, because a ship to be scrapped must land bow first, dead perpendicular to the beach. Tankers are not nimble things. The helmsman must execute the maneuver with care as well as with an eye on the tide clock.

  “We must land at the highest tide to get as far up the beach as possible,” said Doud. He pointed to his watch. “We are good. Very good. Tonight, 17:30.”

  The Maiden pulled anchor and we were off.

  To be sure, the view was fine. The coast of the Kowloon Peninsula looked as if a creature had risen from the South China Sea and taken bites out of the continent, each bite a bay and each bay an unspoiled repetition of the one preceding, with thick green vegetation that ringed white, sandy arcs of beach. One bay would end, rising to a rocky promontory, then descend to another. The pattern repeated for a good hour until we passed a promontory atop which stood several steel towers.

  The Eagle Maiden had reached her burial ground. This bay was larger than the others. Aligned like so many container trucks queued at an industrial park, eleven ships—some as large as the Maiden—sat high on the beach, bow first. We were too far offshore to see men with torches climbing over the hulls. But I knew they were working because I could see plumes of yellow-orange sparks raining down onto the beach.