The First Excellence: Fa-Ling's Map

by Donna Carrick

  Wang asked some specific questions and began to pencil the face based on her answers. He was not a talented artist, but he had drawn some adequate sketches in the course of his job. When he was finished, Fa-ling reached for the notebook, her hand careful not to brush his as she took it.

  He gave her his pencil. She used the eraser to remove some of his lines, adding others until the face looked as close to the man she’d seen as she could render it. Then she passed the book back to Yong-qi.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I really, really do not want to get involved,” she said. “I’ll be in Nanning for the rest of the week, and I’ll help in any way I can while I’m here. After that, I have to leave for Beijing with my group.”

  “I understand. I may have some more questions for you after I speak with my partner, but it should not be necessary for you to repeat your statement before the authorities.”

  “I appreciate that, Detective Wang.” She turned toward the dressing table, seeming to struggle with something that was on her mind. He watched her unguarded face in the mirror, knowing it would inhabit his dreams for many nights to come.

  “Can I ask you something?” she finally said.

  “Of course.”

  “Your partner said, I mean, last night ― was it really a case of suicide?”

  Yong-qi closed his notebook and tucked it into the pocket of his carefully chosen tan jacket, keeping his eyes on the exit.

  “Apparently,” was all he said.

  When the door closed behind him he stood for a moment in the hall wishing he had the courage to knock again. As he walked away he was followed by the strains of another melody, haunting and fresh, but definitely not familiar to him.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Guy Kader was relieved to see Paula’s mood had lifted. She hummed a song as the elevator carried them to the lobby to meet their guide. It seemed strange she should be cheerful today, after months of brooding and distance.

  The events of the previous night played on Guy’s mind, but they seemed to have a positive effect on Paula. Maybe their close proximity with death had put things into perspective, helping her to understand what was really important in their lives.

  Or maybe she had discovered a way to resolve whatever was bothering her.

  Whatever the reason for her improved attitude, Guy was grateful for the result. Paula greeted the rest of the group with a smile. She even held Guy’s arm as they followed Cynthia outside to the busy street.

  “Try to stick together,” Cynthia said, “and be careful of the cars. Traffic rules are difficult to enforce in Nanning.”

  “No kidding,” Joseph said, shaking his head at the mess of vehicles clogging the intersection.

  “What if we do wander off?” Paula said. “Is there a place and time when we can all meet up?”

  “Yes,” Cynthia said, “we can meet back here in the hotel lobby at 10:45. I’d like to fit in a trip to the local mall before the babies arrive this afternoon. You can buy diapers, formula, anything you might have forgotten to bring with you.”

  The group, minus Adrian and Ting-lo Harlan, obediently followed Cynthia down the busy street. In many places the sidewalk had been torn up leaving a gaping mess of dirt and rubble they had to clamber over or around. The stores were a long row of steel and cement boxes, with their front doors rolled up so passers-by could view the wares inside. In fact, the entire block might have been one giant neighbourhood garage sale, were it not for the delightfully garish banners that were hung from the individual awnings announcing the merchandise available in enormous Chinese characters.

  Cynthia led the group into an herbalist’s shop, its shelves carefully labelled with lists of ingredients that were meaningless to the Canadians. She pointed to a large display of golden silk-covered boxes.

  “This salve is made from ground tiger bones,” she said. “It will cure pain in the joints.”

  “I could use that,” Joseph said. “How much?”

  “Oh, this is expensive,” Cynthia said. “Each small box will be worth about one hundred of your dollars.”

  “Does it work?”

  “So they say,” Cynthia gave a little smile, letting them know she would straddle the fence when it came to product endorsement.

  “What about this one,” Joseph said, pointing at a brightly-coloured package with a golden tiger on it.

  “That one is an aphrodisiac,” Cynthia answered.

  “Does it work?” Adrian asked.

  Cynthia only laughed in response.

  Paula led Guy down aisle after aisle, pointing at the beautiful arrays of red, green and yellow containers. It was impossible from the packages to guess what might be inside, or what the purpose of each product might be. Unlike Toronto drug stores, there was no obvious section for cosmetics. There may have been bath products on display in plain sight, but if there were, Paula couldn’t tell.

  “What’s this one?” she asked, pointing at a blue lotion bottle with a picture of a woman in long robes sitting in a field of flowers.

  “That one is to tighten the skin,” Cynthia said. “Exposure to the sun will cause darkness and wrinkles. This product is supposed to reverse the effect, making the complexion lighter and smoother.”

  “Does it work?” Paula asked.

  Again Cynthia gave her non-committal shrug, causing the couples to laugh out loud.

  By the end of the first block, Paula’s cheerful mood was already giving way to edginess. Guy could feel the shift, though no one else would have noticed. Her body was with him but her mind was already long gone, racing ahead of him down the next street.

  “Let’s walk over there,” she said, pointing to the other side of the road. “Those stores look interesting.”

  “We should stay with the group,” Guy said.

  “I want to explore.” She let go of his arm and darted halfway across the road, narrowly escaping an on-coming motor-scooter. He was forced to wait until there was another opening in the flow of traffic, so she was already half way up the next block before he reached her.

  “What’s the big idea?” he said. “You just left me standing there.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought you wanted to stay with the group.”

  She gave him an apologetic smile intended to excuse her behaviour. However, Guy knew his wife too well to be taken in by charm. She had obviously intended to ditch him. He didn’t know what her agenda was or why she wanted to take off on her own, but he was not inclined to make it easy for her.

  Paula led him to the next block, then turned right down a narrow dust-coloured avenue. She stood on the edge of the road — there were no sidewalks — and scanned the fronts of the buildings on both sides of the street carefully.

  Then she took his arm, as if she hadn’t just tried to get rid of him. She led him across the street, stopping in front of a metal shed-like structure that was painted blue. Neighbouring stores displayed shirts and hats, but the blue building seemed to be deserted. Its shelves were piled high with boxes.

  “What’s in here?” he said.

  She looked around before answering.

  “Looks like they make china teapots.” She pointed to one of the shelves, which had an assortment of beautifully hand-painted pots and tiny cups in every colour and design. Some featured cavorting dragons, some had lions. “These are really nice,” she added, sounding surprised.

  She lifted one of the little pots, checking its weight.

  “This would make a great keepsake for Mei-Mei,” she said. Mei-Mei was the name given to their new daughter by the orphanage. Guy wanted to name her Alexandra, after his sister, but Paula had a fixed idea on the subject, wanting to keep Mei-Mei’s Chinese name.

  “It would,” he agreed. He studied the intricate patterns. For a moment he almost forgot he was being played yet again by his beautiful wife. He could imagine placing the tea service in their display case at home. In his mind he leapt years into the future and saw an older Mei-Mei admiring this fragment of her los
t heritage.

  “Do you think we could get the whole set home without breaking it?” Paula asked.

  Guy shrugged. He wasn’t even sure they could get themselves home without suffering a breakdown of staggering proportions.

  “We could try,” he finally said. He did not want to disappoint her. This was the Paula he had fallen in love with, the woman who could see the beauty in something so simple, so ‘off the beaten path’. While the other wives would be merrily spending small fortunes on jewellery and clothes, Paula’s eyes would light up at the sight of anything created with true artistic skill.

  He understood how she felt. Holding the teapot up to the light he was sure he could see the soul of its maker studying him through the eyes of the gilded dragon.

  “I wonder how much it is?” Paula said. There was a price tag on the bottom, but the amount was written in Chinese characters. “Hello,” she said, raising her voice. “Ni hao. Is anyone here?”

  A black rubber curtain at the back of the store opened and a young Chinese woman stepped through it.

  “Hi,” Paula said. “How much is this?” She pointed at the teapot Guy was holding, then at the matching cups and saucers on the shelf.

  The woman spoke in Chinese. To Guy’s surprise, Paula answered, spitting out a few halting phrases. The woman beckoned her toward the rubber curtain.

  Guy followed Paula to the back of the store, but the woman put her hand up, making it clear she wanted him to stay where he was. Paula shrugged and followed her.

  Guy strained to hear what was being said behind the curtain, but did not pick up the sound of Paula’s voice. The Chinese woman seemed to be scolding someone, but then Guy often thought Chinese people were scolding each other when they spoke. It was the enthusiasm of their speech tones that made them sound like they were perpetually angry, he supposed.

  A few moments later, Paula was back at his side.

  The woman followed with several silk-covered packing boxes. She reached into a bin and pulled out a mound of dirty, used tissue. She wrapped each piece of the tea set tightly in the tissue and lined the boxes carefully before placing the cups inside.

  “It comes to about fifty dollars,” Paula said.

  Guy paid for the purchase in Yuan and followed Paula back to the main street. Whatever scheme she had been hatching seemed to have been dispatched in the back of the blue building. She was much more relaxed as they rejoined the others.

  Guy spent the next hour silently speculating on the true nature of the transaction in the store.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Shopei rinsed soap from her hair and leaned back in the tub’s warm water.

  Master Long was busy painting in the garden, his scroll of rice paper stretched on a rack where slowly, magically birth was being given to the mystical image of an ancient landscape. According to traditional Chinese art, the river, cliff and pagoda would emerge in a uniform shade of brown or grey, but Long was a man of the present and as such he joyfully employed every colour at his disposal.

  Randy was scribbling furiously at the kitchen table. He occasionally played back the recording of his brief interview with Wu Gui-Jing to confirm the accuracy of some detail and studied the photos Shopei had given him of her murdered family. The connection between Gui-Jing’s escape and the massacre of the Tan family was clear to Randy. He wanted to make it equally clear to anyone who read his story.

  He raised his head when Shopei returned from the bath wearing a white silk tunic and matching pants decorated with golden cranes. Her hair was still wet. She had fixed it into a long braid that fell down her back, creating a damp spot on the tunic. Randy couldn’t help but notice his cousin had become a beautiful woman. She held herself proudly, her eyes alone betraying the depth of her grief.

  “You may use the bath now,” she said. “Master Long has left some clean clothes for you on his bed.”

  “Thank you,” Randy said. “I’ll be finished here in just a moment.”

  Master Long had promised to guide Shopei and Randy in a meditation ceremony to honour the passing of the Tan family. Unlike in the West, where black was the colour of mourning, in China garments of white silk were appropriate to the occasion.

  Randy was packing up his notebook when a rasping sound from behind the curtain caused him to turn. He hurried to the healing bed, followed by Shopei. Wu Gui-Jing was struggling to raise her body into a sitting position. She spoke faintly, a line of saliva trickling from her mouth.

  “She says she is ready to die,” Shopei translated for Randy.

  “I’ll ask the Master to come inside.”

  “Stay here for a moment, please. She may not remain lucid for long. She is asking us to contact someone.”

  The young woman continued to murmur.

  “She says she is not afraid to die. She wants us to contact a man, her husband. She is telling us the phone number.”

  “I’ll get a pen.”

  Randy ran back to the table and returned carrying his notebook and pen. Shopei translated the number and he wrote it down.

  It was possible Gui-Jing was merely dreaming, but for the first time since the attack her eyes were bright with determination. She repeated the number for Shopei, insisting she place the call at once.

  Randy pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and turned it on. He passed it to his cousin, who carefully entered the number Wu Gui-Jing had whispered.

  The phone rang once, twice, then a third time…

  **

  It was almost 10:00 am by the time Wang Yong-qi got back to his apartment. He felt like a damn fool. Li Fa-ling had noticed his interest in her. On the slightest provocation he would have attempted to make conversation, or offered to buy her breakfast.

  She had given him no such encouragement.

  This, thought Yong-qi, must be what it’s like to grow old. Until that moment, he had never really been aware of the passage of time, nor of the consequences of his own mortality. After all, he was only thirty-three. He had never found himself in the position of desiring the attention of a younger woman.

  What a cruelty it is, he considered, to rob a man of his youth but leave him with his eyes. On the other hand, he wouldn’t want to lose his eyes, either, and he laughed at his own ridiculous thoughts. Staying awake through the night to wander dark streets in search of even darker deeds will stain a man’s mind. That was the curse of being a cop on the night shift. No amount of daytime slumber could compensate for the loss of those precious hours spent in the healing dream-state of the night.

  However, since daytime sleep was the only alternative available to him at the moment, he decided he had better get on with it. He studied his reflection in the mirror one last time, admiring the tan-coloured summer jacket and the youthful white T-shirt and blue jeans. He thought he could pass for twenty-something, if only it weren’t for his eyes. They were a give-away. His mother said Yong-qi was an old soul. That must explain the geriatric appearance of his countenance. The eyes truly are windows to the chi.

  Discouraged, he removed his clothes, carefully hanging them in the closet. His apartment was one of the better ones in Nanning, but even so it was not air-conditioned. Few of the units inhabited by locals could claim that particular luxury.

  Yong-qi opened his bedroom window and turned on the standing fan at the foot of his bed. He retrieved a pair of boxer shorts that doubled as pyjama bottoms from under his pillow and pulled them on, tightening the string around his narrow waist. Then he crawled into bed, exhausted, praying sleep would quickly relieve him of his regret over letting his attraction for Fa-ling become so obvious.

  He had just drifted off when the chirruping sound of a telephone brought him back to reality. The ring was unfamiliar to him, as it did not belong to one of his own phones.

  He leapt up, sat on the edge of his bed, and scanned the room to find the source of the sound.

  His eyes fell at last on the bag in the middle of the floor, the one belonging to the late ‘Chen Sui Ming’.

 
TWENTY-EIGHT

  Fa-ling didn’t know what to do with herself for the rest of the morning. The babies were expected to arrive after 3:00 p.m. They would be brought to their new parents by bus — a six hour trip through rough country from their village orphanage to the metropolis of Nanning with its population of more than 11 million.

  Fa-ling would meet the group in the lobby at 2:30. From there they would be taken to the government office where the transfer of the babies to their adopting parents would occur.

  Until that time she was on her own. She considered placing another call to Detective Wang. He was obviously interested in her. It would be pleasant to spend some time with him.

  On the other hand, she hadn’t slept much during the previous night, and he hadn’t slept at all, so it might be a waste of time trying to hook up with him. Besides, she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of asking a strange man for a date. If Detective Wang was interested in her, he should have found a way to make his intentions clear.

  Fa-ling remembered the way his face had burned bright red with embarrassment when he had looked up to find her standing so close in the bathroom. She wanted to say something to put him at ease, but nothing came to mind so she left the room. After that the handsome detective kept his eyes on the door, as if he couldn’t wait to finish with her and get the hell out of there.

  By now, she thought, Wang would be asleep, resting up for another night shift ahead. Suddenly jet lag caught up with her and she was overcome with fatigue. She lay down on the unmade bed and kicked off her sandals. In no time, she was sound asleep.

  **

  Ting-lo paced anxiously around the room, chewing on a painted nail until the deep red colour was chipped and ugly.

  “What now?” she said.