THE IDES OF JUNE FOUND Dr. Lao-Hong in his San Francisco study writing a long letter to an old college friend in Boston. Indeed, the doctor had received a number of concerned letters from old colleagues and friends asking after his well-being since the disastrous earthquake two months earlier, but he was only now finding the time to respond. But in doing so he discovered that the very act of setting down recent events from his own perspective led him to sort out and scrutinize all his thoughts and reflections for the first time in months. He made no attempt to write down everything, of course, but he pondered everything in as dispassionate a manner as he could muster. His one discomforting obstacle rested in the knowledge that he was, to some degree, little more than a yarn ball in the cat’s paw of fortune. For in truth there were really two diametrically opposed experiences inextricably knotted together in his thoughts; one was but the shadow manifestation of the other. But he could only share one part of the story, the rest he would have to take to his grave, and at age thirty-seven he believed that was a long time to keep a secret, but he would do it. Betrayal was out of the question.
The doctor’s letters were gracious. He was sincerely gratified by the solicitude of his friends, but he only felt comfortable writing about the basic facts as he viewed them, and for the most part he recomposed general news and personal observations. The outline remained principally the same for each letter.
Dr. Lao-Hong wrote that 1906 had been a most distressing and disagreeable year for a great number of people in northern California. The range of deadly earthquakes and their aftermath meant that most everyone except undertakers suffered serious financial loss in one form or another. A destroyed business, of whatever size and importance, meant no employment. But it was all the same, as there were no customers, and there were no patrons because there were no accessible funds for them to spend. Credit was all but impossible to get because many banks, along with their records, had been severely damaged in the earthquakes, or subsequently destroyed by fire. Hard cash money had dried up almost overnight because the price of every conceivable commodity, from goat’s milk to buggy whips, became shockingly exorbitant. Prices for the simplest staples rose astronomically, and good whiskey and other spirits became so rare and costly that even a number of gambling dens, dance halls, and back-alley saloons went belly-up. But by far, the worst scandals were perpetrated by the blackguards who manipulated the trade in essential medications and medical supplies. Their dealings were nothing if not blatant and merciless criminal extortion. And though it was probably only a slight exaggeration, it was wildly rumored that in some parts of San Francisco, a badly injured person needed gold to enjoy the privilege of staying alive.
The consequences of this series of events rippled out in all directions, substantially affecting all strata of society. Leaving himself till last, Dr. Lao-Hong was pleased to report to his friends that his family was safe and well, and presently staying with relatives in Oakland. He was grateful that his own dwelling suffered only moderate structural damage, though its contents had been liberally thrown about. Anything that could be broken had been.
On a more sanguine note, the doctor went on to observe, perhaps with some pride, that there was one group of people who seemed to have endured the recent calamity with the least amount of devastation, disruption, or corruption, and that was the local Chinese community.
It was said by some people that the Chinese lost the least because they had the least to lose, but this was only evidence of their blind ignorance. The truth is that they lost the least because they took better precautions to preserve what they had. The doctor wrote that a long history of similar disasters in China had long since encouraged the development of methods to secure both personal and financial survival. Centuries of experience had made the Chinese familiar with such implacable catastrophes. But somehow, in spite of long wars, bloody revolutions, and devastating natural disasters, the pulse of banking, commerce, and trade never really ceases. Their fiscal system operates under a purely pragmatic tenet of extended accountability. If a man carries debt, his whole family must shoulder the burden until the obligation is resolved. It’s simple and it works. And to that end every commercial transaction floats on a “tranquil pond” of extended credit. Unless otherwise stipulated, official repayment of debt is ceremoniously transacted twice a year, sometimes only on New Year’s Day.
Dr. Lao-Hong was pleased to make note that, unlike most people in the city, the local Chinese were essentially self-sustaining in respect to food, clothing, shelter, and especially medical care.
Suddenly the doctor stopped writing in midsentence and put up his pen. With a deep sigh born of frustration, he set aside his letters on the desk. Upon reflection it disturbed him to realize that in spite of the serious subject matter, everything he’d written sounded awkward, superficial, and distracted.
And there was no doubt about it. The doctor was seriously distracted, almost painfully preoccupied with the discomforting realization that the other story, the one he could never document in any form, kept encroaching on his thoughts at all hours of the day and night. He was often reflectively engaged to such a degree that all else, including the present turmoil, became little more than a monochromatic background. But whether he wished to or not, it was very likely that Dr. Lao-Hong would once again surrender his thoughts to the recent past, and again try to envisage and qualify the inscrutable machinations of destiny, a fate that had goaded him onto the course he was now committed to follow with eternal fidelity.
Dr. Lao-Hong had known from the very first that the discovery of Admiral Zhou Man’s stone testament, and the accompanying imperial seal, would cause widespread controversy within the higher echelons of the Chinese tongs in northern California. But that aside, he hoped to resolve the issue in an equitable manner. Nonetheless, the young doctor, having been born, raised, and educated in America, and espousing as he did a semi-Western sensibility, knew quite well that he was now embroiled in a thorny situation that could easily erupt into perilous tong rivalries.
Dr. Lao-Hong’s predicament was hardly new. In truth, he had been dealing with variations of the same dilemma all his adult life. Simply stated, it centered on the fact that immigrant Chinese, despite the fact that Dr. Lao-Hong spoke flawless Mandarin and Cantonese, perceived him as being too American, while white Americans, of course, treated him like they did all Chinese, no matter how well he spoke English, or how advanced his education.
This fish-nor-fowl quandary had required Dr. Lao-Hong to walk a very narrow path in both worlds, and though his loyalties had always sided with his Chinese brethren, his intellectual sensibilities were Western in the main, and herein lay another ungainly dilemma. Though the Chinese had considered themselves fully literate for many centuries, the truth was at odds with that presumption, at least for those Chinese who had come into the shadow of the Gold Mountain as poor laborers, with little or no formal education of any kind. Sadly, most were illiterate in all but the simplest Chinese characters. In many cases these people arrived in San Francisco from different parts of China and could hardly communicate with one another, much less their white employers. Even Lao-Hong found he sometimes experienced great difficulty comprehending the least bit of the various local dialects. In some instances he found his poorer interlocutors spoke a local patois of Chinese that was totally incomprehensible even to their neighbors in the next province. It was like the difference between French and Norwegian.
The doctor had long been aware that blistering ignorance invariably walked hand in hand with blind superstition, but that was true of all mankind and hardly unique to his own race. However, this tradition did cause some conflict within the Chinese communities themselves. Those who were raised in conservative and better-educated Mandarin societies brought their ancient prejudices east, and so looked down on those fellow countrymen who spoke Cantonese, or any other dialect for that matter. On the other hand, those Chinese who spoke various forms of Cantonese traditionally suspected the high-handed motives and cultural vanities of thos
e who spoke Mandarin, and herein lay one of the problems he was about to confront.
The various tongs represented the cultural tastes and inclinations of their elders and constituents, and in the past their competing interests had sometimes led to outright warfare between them. This was by no means a local novelty. Such conflicts had been going on in China for centuries. Dr. Lao-Hong was reminded of something his esteemed father had told him: “The Chinese Empire had only one all-powerful enemy in the world, and it was the Chinese themselves.”
Through his university studies, the doctor had since learned that the same could be said of the Americans, the English, the French, the Germans, and virtually every other nation on earth. The only possible exception was the Duchy of Lichtenstein, whose minuscule population and limited acreage precluded the luxury of having enemies, either domestic or foreign.
For reasons that Lao-Hong could only imagine, Dr. Gilbert had ultimately refrained from publicly divulging what he knew but could not prove, and the local population of Monterey remained ignorant of Mr. O’Flynn’s discoveries. The same, however, could not be said of the Chinese community. The Chinese were quite capable of maintaining an ironclad secrecy as far as foreigners were concerned, but within their own ranks, secrecy was next to impossible. Word of the stone tablet and Zhou Man’s Imperial seal traveled like a thatch fire throughout the tongs all the way to San Francisco.
Within weeks, a close and heated debate arose among the various factions. Some bearded elders insisted the treasures should be held and guarded by the parent tongs in San Francisco, while others believed they should be sent back to China. But the cold facts were sad, as most just wanted the treasures only for themselves.
As might be expected, possession of these artifacts brought great prestige and honor to the tong that sheltered them, and the Chinese in Monterey felt they held a proprietary interest in the matter. For them possession was better than nine-tenths of the law; it was everything. Regrettably, it was within this context that Dr. Lao-Hong found himself precariously wedged between several tigers at once. He was easily persuaded that if he didn’t employ great political dexterity, he might just be crushed by the impetus of conflicting interests, and that would mean defeat and a public loss of face for his family and clan.
DR. LAO-HONG WAS THE PROUD scion of a very influential and respected family. Sadly, he was away at school in the east when his mother and father died in the typhoid epidemic of 1887. He was then taken under the collective wings of two aging but extremely powerful uncles. Between them, these venerable gentlemen managed eighty percent of the Chinese export market leaving San Francisco. They also controlled nine seats on the august council of the Three Corporations, which gave them the majority vote on almost every issue. There wasn’t a tong in California that dared close its doors to them on any pretext. And though they showed all the outward signs of great modesty and frugality, they were in fact men of phenomenal wealth, influence, and responsibility.
It was to these gentlemen that Dr. Lao-Hong owed the most profound marks of respect and gratitude. They had financed his expensive education and seen to it that he lacked for nothing in his pursuit of academic excellence. Having no siblings to care for, Dr. Lao-Hong was free to indulge his studies for as long as he liked. And though his uncles were of a traditionally conservative strain, they had always treated him with the greatest affection and indulgence, in some cases even more so than their own children. They were very proud of their nephew’s scholarship and academic achievements, and came to depend upon his help and advice in matters that related to business dealings with Yankee officials or government placemen. His uncles’ indulgence and generosity even extended to breaking with convention and ceding their rights to secure all matrimonial arrangements, and he was allowed to marry the girl of his choice. Happily, she was the jewel of an ancient and prestigious family, and it was a love match from the first. After ten years and three children, his wife, Mui Choi, was still considered a great beauty. The doctor loved her above all else and revered her compassionate and insightful sensibilities.
After his extended interview with Master Ah Chung, the tong elders, and Dr. Gilbert, Dr. Lao-Hong returned to San Francisco by ship and immediately went to his uncles to report in detail all that had transpired in Monterey.
Almost at once, strong opinions concerning the matter were lofted everywhere. At first he too had been in favor of secretly returning the treasures to China. But his wife, with whom he shared everything of importance, had reasonably pointed out that the markers had been buried on purpose. If the grave of the great admiral had been discovered instead, there would be few who would dare play fast and loose with his revered bones, or use them to garner prestige. The desecration would only serve to strip that man and his entire family of all honor and respect. When the doctor asked his wife what she recommended be done, she cast one of her soft, beautiful smiles and said she believed the treasure should be secretly put back where it was found, only much deeper in the ground. They should shelter beneath those ancient cypress trees, where Zhou Man intended them to rest.
A few days later, Dr. Lao-Hong was pondering Mui Choi’s suggestion when he received a polite but urgent summons to attend a meeting at his uncles’ offices. When he arrived he was not surprised to discover the presence of two austere, bearded elders from the Three Corporations sitting in attendance. For arcane reasons of security as well as tradition, the men who sat on the council of the Three Corporations were always referred to by number, and never by name. Thus, Dr. Lao-Hong politely bowed to Uncle Eight and Uncle Eleven. In the scheme of things, his own uncles were known as Uncle Four and Uncle Six. The numbers reflected a strict code of seniority, with all votes being proportional. Only Uncle One and Uncle Two possessed veto power, which was rarely if ever employed against the wishes of the majority.
After all the social amenities had been dispensed with and tea had been served, Dr. Lao-Hong was informed of the purpose of his presence. He was told by his uncles that after considerable candid and productive deliberation, the council of the Three Corporations had come to what they believed was an equitable solution for the future of Zhou Man’s stone testament and Imperial seal.
First of all, they agreed that the artifacts were to stay under the Gold Mountain, and thus in California, but they viewed it as their duty to forestall what they believed might easily become an acrimonious and bloody rivalry between the various parent tongs for possession of the treasures.
By their estimation the stones were now sheltered in a diminutive tong hall on the storm-wracked coast of Monterey Bay, and secured with nothing more than a curtained altar and some vigilant but powerless elders. It was their opinion that a few illiterate fishermen could not possibly know the true meaning or cultural significance of the artifacts in their possession. The council had thus determined that the Three Corporations should offer the security of their wealth and organization to protect and care for the artifacts in the name of the presiding tong of record in Monterey. The uncles would undertake to reveal the artifacts only to the scrutiny of enlightened Chinese scholars, and they were additionally prepared to swear and sign binding oaths promising that the heathen Yankees would never know of or possess the treasure, on pain of a financial penalty if they violated this agreement.
To place the matter in its proper rank of significance, the Three Corporations were generously prepared to secure the interests of the fishermen’s tong with a cash bounty of twenty-five thousand dollars in gold, plus a substantial insurance bond to indemnify the loss if any harm were to come to the treasures while in transport and under the protection of the Three Corporations.
As Dr. Lao-Hong well understood, this thinly veiled scheme was, in reality, little more than a gilt-edged act of extortion, albeit plumed with a handsome bribe to assuage dignity all around. It thus represented the price that face, status, and respect demanded in exchange for the inestimable honor of protecting these priceless cultural treasures on behalf of all concerned interests.
/> On the other hand, though it didn’t help him feel any better about the situation, the doctor knew that the uncles were right in principle. For these priceless symbols of a great and proud history to reside within a flyblown tong hall in a peasant fishing village was not deemed appropriate in light of their importance. After all, stealing valuables from the Chinese was not unheard of, and there was a well-worn axiom that declared that one should gather only those valuables that can be most easily secured. The fishermen had little to boast of in that regard. And, as the uncles were well aware, there was still a very good chance that word might leak out through Professor Gilbert, which would only promote another disquieting series of complications.
The conclusion of the interview focused on a detailed set of instructions. Dr. Lao-Hong was to return to Monterey as an official representative of the Three Corporations, and in the most amenable and respectful manner possible make all the necessary arrangements.
Had he been invited to do so, Dr. Lao-Hong could have listed any number of foreseeable obstacles to an equitable and happy outcome. But he was not. Nor did he feel it was his place to taint his uncles’ sanguine expectations with pessimistic speculations. Negative sentiments only opened the doors to ill fortune, and joss played a large part in everything Chinese.
Privately, the doctor had drifted around to his wife’s way of thinking. He had come to believe that Zhou Man’s treasure, whether the uncles suspected it or not, was going to dispense far more than honor or face. It saddened him, but the doctor would not be in the least surprised to hear that blood had been shed in the serpentine wake of the orphaned treasures. And in that regard, he also believed his first responsibility was to make sure that it wasn’t his blood.
Dr. Lao-Hong smiled to recall that Mui Choi had been right about something else as well. The only really intelligent course open to him was to assume a benign posture of enlightened disinterest. It was one of those annoying mystical conundrums that always seemed to surface at the wrong time. It was an ancient philosophical puzzle. One defends and protects either everyone or no one. What is the path of an honorable man who finds no principled alternatives at his disposal? The irresolvable questions of justice and loyalty flowed in and out like the tides, and the doctor was quite sure that failure on his part might find his professional “corpse” floating out to sea on one of those tides.
In The Shadow of The Cypress Page 8