In the Shade of the Blossom Tree

by Joanna Rees

  ‘Excuse me, Ms Chan.’

  Lois started at the sound of a woman’s voice. She looked over the edge of the pagoda. Angela Ho was standing on the immaculate grass beneath her. She was wearing a red two-piece suit and high heels, the bow of her lips painted a bright vermilion to match.

  Lois couldn’t help feeling unnerved by her. There was a steeliness to her eyes that belied the perfect hostess smile. Maybe her ostentatiously charming manner was all a façade and she had the capacity to snap into vicious cruelty in a second. And perhaps Lois wasn’t the only one who thought so. Because from the way the staff treated her, with terrified deference, Lois got the impression that Angela Ho was a formidable boss indeed. But maybe Jai Shijai demanded this level of perfection. Maybe, in his mini-fiefdom, he required staff like Ms Ho to make it all run like clockwork.

  ‘Dr Jai will see you now. Kai is waiting for you downstairs. He’ll show you where to go,’ she said.

  Lois felt overdressed in her suit and absurdly Western next to Kai, who was wearing the regulation loose black pyjamas all the staff wore, as she followed him over the ornamental bridge towards the main house.

  As they walked in through a grand glass-and-wood hallway into a spacious atrium at the back of the house, the air conditioning hit her like an icy slap.

  This was where the poker tournament would take place, Kai explained. An ornate table was set on a raised dais in the middle with ten chairs around it. At the far end of the room was a lavish bar.

  Lois followed Kai to the bottom of a sweeping staircase, which elegantly wound up through the atrium. She had to speed-walk to keep up with him, as he started up the shallow marble steps. Lois was no modern art aficionado, but she’d seen enough postcards and New York exhibition posters in her time to hazard a guess that several of the pictures were Picasso sketches. And originals too.

  So this was what the world of the super-wealthy was like, she thought. She spent her whole time at the Enzo treating all the customers the same, no matter how many chips were stacked up in front of them. It was hard to equate those little discs of plastic to anything real. But here, surrounded by the trappings of extreme wealth, it was impossible not to feel awed and humbled. And as they continued up the stairs, Lois started to feel more and more nervous about meeting the great tycoon in person.

  At the top of the staircase there was a wide corridor. At the far end was a floor-to-ceiling window framing another view of the island, showing off its series of interlinked swimming pools connected by waterfalls, cascading towards the sea.

  The corridor swung left and terminated abruptly in what looked like a dead end. A man in a dark suit was sitting stiffly on an ornate chair. He stood up quickly and looked Lois up and down. A bodyguard, Lois surmised.

  He didn’t pat her down or check her for weapons. But then again, he probably felt that he didn’t need to. Her luggage had already been searched, she knew, even before it was delivered to her room. They hadn’t done a bad job repacking her belongings, they just hadn’t done a perfect job. And for a girl who’d grown up in a cramped apartment like she had, noticing that someone had meddled with her things was second nature.

  The bodyguard moved aside, with a low, watchful bow. Kai stepped forward and knocked on a painted panel. It slid back smoothly to reveal a hidden doorway. Kai gestured Lois through with a smile.

  After the tasteful minimalism of the rest of the building, the minute she stepped inside Jai Shijai’s personal quarters Lois felt as if she’d arrived in a commercial emporium.

  The suite of rooms was crammed with an array of furniture and artefacts and classical music was bursting from what Lois assumed must be hidden speakers. The walls and ceiling were covered in hand-painted silk wallpaper depicting cranes in paddy fields and ancient Chinese battles. Two antique pillars towered upwards through the middle of the room, with inlaid ivory dragons curling around them. A chandelier carved like a fire-breathing dragon hung suspended from the clear glass dome above.

  Kai led her past an intricately carved teak table. On it was a shallow china pot containing a gnarled old bonsai tree. Lois was no expert, but a specimen like that must be hundreds of years old. A pair of scissors and a few minuscule clippings lay next to it.

  Western music . . . a Japanese bonsai . . . Jai was clearly a cultured man of the world.

  This wasn’t a business meeting, she thought, but more like an audience with a king. And now, at the far end of the rooms, where the glass and wooden screen doors opened on to a balcony, was Jai Shijai himself, seated on his throne. Well, on a leather chair, to be precise. He had his back to her, facing the view of the trees and waterfalls, the white beaches and blue sea beyond.

  Kai scurried off backwards, without a word.

  Lois saw now that a woman was kneeling in front of Jai Shijai, performing reflexology on his manicured feet, a look of intense concentration on her face. Jai Shijai’s eyes were closed as he conducted the soaring strings silently in the air.

  The woman was wearing a white tunic and trousers and looked annoyed at the interruption. She squeezed Jai Shijai’s bare feet.

  ‘Ah,’ Lois heard him sigh.

  He dismissed the woman not with a snap of his fingers, as Lois had half expected, but with a gentle whisper and a smile.

  Was she his wife? Lois wondered. Or were they lovers? Or maybe Jai Shijai wasn’t the sexist ogre his exclusively male entourage in Las Vegas – or the army of neat, meek women here – had led her previously to conclude. In fact, so far all of her assumptions about him had been completely wrong.

  Jai Shijai wriggled his toes appreciatively. The woman kept her head bowed as she quickly gathered up the mat she’d been kneeling on. She glanced briefly at Lois and nodded as she passed her.

  Jai picked up a remote control from the arm of the chair and pressed a button. The music stopped. Birdsong and the sound of gently trickling water filled the balcony in its place, as he stood up and faced her.

  He was wearing utilitarian loose cotton trousers and a blue smock top, its sleeves rolled up as if he were a peasant worker, an affectation Lois had last seen in photos of Chairman Mao. But even so, there was something immaculately groomed about him. In the flesh, he was younger than she’d assumed – even from the live CCTV stream of him playing at the Enzo – probably no more than fifty.

  Despite the weight he carried around his face, he wasn’t unattractive. In fact, there was a charisma about him that took Lois by surprise. He was clearly a man in the prime of life.

  ‘Ms Chan,’ he said. He had small, neat teeth, which were very white. ‘Welcome to my home,’ he went on in Cantonese. His accent was sharper, faster than those she’d grown up with.

  ‘Thank you. I am very honoured to be here,’ she answered, in Cantonese too.

  ‘Please, talk to me in English,’ he said, as they both sat down. It was an order. He placed his hands on his knees and looked at her for a second, then he tutted and wagged his finger. There was a playful twinkle in his eyes. ‘Your accent is somewhat Americanized, Lois. May I call you Lois?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, embarrassed that the very first time she’d opened her mouth she’d made a fool of herself. But she saw that he was more amused than angry.

  ‘We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting in person at the Enzo Vegas when I’ve been there, have we? But I’m sure you’ve been watching me on your screens. Am I right?’

  Lois blushed. Because, yes, she did spend a lot of time watching him on the screens. After what had happened that first time he played at the Enzo Vegas, everyone kept a careful eye on Jai. Roberto had made no secret of the fact that the only good thing to come out of the shooting that night was that Jai Shijai had been interrupted before he broke the house. Since then, all players had adhered strictly to the house rules.

  ‘It’s always a pleasure to have you at the Enzo Vegas,’ she said, trying to sound gracious.

  Jai Shijai nodded, clearly aware that she was taking the corporate line when he was trying to get more
personal. He looked at her for a moment, then smiled. ‘I’ve been very interested to meet the woman who saved the Yankee senator.’

  She bristled. No doubt Jai Shijai had heard all the stories Hudson had spread about her. But even though his public criticism had been downright mean rather than accurate, she’d still spent the last eighteen months back at the Enzo reviewing and changing its security protocols, so that nothing like that night could ever happen again.

  ‘I wish there had been another way to resolve the situation. I regret what happened very much.’

  Jai Shijai frowned. ‘Regret nothing,’ he said, curling his hand into a fist. He thumped it down on his knee, making her jump. ‘You are the first woman to save an American senator’s life, I think. Be proud.’

  There was no point in arguing. He had obviously formed some opinion of her that she wasn’t going to shake.

  He stared at her and she held his gaze for a moment. Instinctively, she knew that she had to let go of her defensiveness. Blurting out how unfairly the Enzo Vegas had been judged in the aftermath of the shooting, and how devastating it had been for Roberto to lose his chance in Shangri-La, would be the wrong way to play this. Besides, so far Jai Shijai had given her only positive feedback. He wasn’t criticizing her. She had to be cool.

  ‘Will you take tea, Lois?’ he asked.

  As she sat at the table at the far end of the balcony, Lois knew all too well how important the unspoken tea ritual was to the Chinese, and what a big deal it was to be offered it by Jai Shijai. She also knew that one false step in the established etiquette and she’d be judged as lacking in manners and refinement.

  What would Grandma have done? she asked herself, searching for memories of the frail old lady who’d tried to teach Miki and her how to take tea like people had done back in Hong Kong. But all Lois remembered was how boring it had been. How still her grandmother had required her to be. How watchful. How alert. Every single gesture had a meaning.

  Being so close to Jai Shijai like this, breathing in his aftershave, being so alone with him, was making her more flustered by the second. This was a man who, according to the rumours she’d heard, had direct influence over hundreds of thousands of people’s lives in the swathes of manufacturing industry and numerous companies he owned in China. Yet here he was, shooting the breeze with her as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

  On the table between them was a book Lois had recognized immediately. It was Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior. She couldn’t believe that Jai Shijai had read such a famous American – and feminist – book.

  ‘You know this?’ he demanded, picking it up and handing it to her.

  ‘Of course.’ Lois took it from him. It immediately made her think of her mother and her work at the Chinese Cultural Center in San Francisco. But thinking of her mother, of her mother’s world – here, in front of Jai Shijai – only threw her even more. The two of them seemed not just countries but entire worlds apart.

  ‘I read it because I knew you were coming,’ he said, confounding her even further. ‘You see, I was intrigued to know what it was like to grow up in the United States.’

  He’d read a book because of her? But why?

  ‘A place of ghosts, but a place of possibilities as well?’ Jai Shijai said.

  ‘Yes, very much so,’ Lois said, trying to recover her composure. ‘I think it’s a place where anyone can succeed . . . with enough luck and determination.’

  She felt proud telling him this, and relieved too to be asserting her American citizenship. To be asserting herself. She believed in the values of the country that she’d been born and brought up in. It suddenly seemed very important to her that Jai Shijai understood that. She was different to him. And she had no reason to feel ashamed.

  ‘Success for everyone,’ he said.

  She put the book gently down on the table between them.

  ‘Even in the police?’ he asked.

  He knew. Lois flushed as his eyes bored into hers.

  Of course he knew. Why wouldn’t Jai Shijai have done his homework on someone he was employing to oversee security in his home on an important occasion?

  What happened was in the past, she told herself. She refused to be defined by it. Especially now.

  ‘That didn’t work out,’ she said.

  ‘So you moved on. Good.’

  At least he wasn’t here to judge her. In fact, he sounded like he was congratulating her. And how could he sum up her life like this? As if he knew her?

  ‘You know the Chinese are the greatest people on earth.’ He said it as a fact rather than an opinion. ‘The West is finished. Their economies . . . their cultures . . . they have all begun to dwindle into history. Power is shifting to the East. America . . . Europe . . . they will soon become a part of the Third World they have exploited for so long.’

  But I am American, she wanted to say.

  ‘Even your friend Roberto Enzo is looking to China now. That, of course, is why he’s made you his ambassador,’ he added.

  His what? Lois’s mind was whirring.

  ‘Roberto tells me how much he wishes to profit from the business opportunities in China. Especially since the senator’s legislation to tax your casinos at home has been passed. You must approve, yes?’ Jai asked. ‘Because you will be central to his business interests in Asia.’

  Would she be central to Roberto’s business interests? What did that mean?

  ‘I know that Michael Hudson is in China right now, developing his site in Shangri-La,’ Jai Shijai continued. ‘Even if Roberto were to secure an entry, he would still have a job to catch up with him. He is already . . . how do you say it? On the back foot.’

  If? So there was an opportunity for Roberto . . . for her.

  ‘They are great rivals.’ Jai Shijai sounded gleeful, as if he were savouring the prospect of two gladiators battling it out. He frowned at Lois. ‘You don’t agree?’

  ‘I think rivalries can be counter-productive,’ she said. She didn’t want to be drawn on how she felt about Michael Hudson.

  ‘On the contrary, they are often healthy for business.’ He smiled and then he paused. ‘Of course, at the end of the day, there can only be one winner. So I wonder . . . will it be Michael Hudson? Or maybe your friend Roberto Enzo? Who will wear the crown in Shangri-La? Only time will tell.’

  From the way he’d said it, and from the dangerous twinkle in his eyes, it was clear who he thought the kingmaker would be. But Lois could barely hide her sense of elation. So Jai Shijai could still make it happen. There would be a chance for Roberto after all. Which meant that despite Hudson’s best efforts, he hadn’t won. Not yet. Not at all.

  ‘But now, tell me, Lois. Do you think women approach business differently?’ Jai asked. ‘Because I have a feeling, Lois, that women are far more competitive than men. But why is it that in your industry there are so few women at the top?’

  Lois could name a hundred reasons. The working hours that were incompatible with family life; the sexism that still persisted across America’s boardrooms, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary. The fact that motherhood and gambling were two areas of life which always seemed to repel each other as forcefully as magnet ends. To name but a few.

  But none of these reasons applied to her. And this conversation was about her. At least, that was what she was beginning to think. Because this felt more and more like an interview. But for what?

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said.

  ‘So how would you feel about being at the top?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ she said, finally losing her composure, startled by the frankness of the question.

  Jai Shijai continued staring at her. ‘I’m just interested, that’s all,’ he said, ‘in the kind of person you are. How far you’re prepared to go. How high you can fly . . .’

  Lois chose her words carefully. If this really was some kind of test, if Jai did have some kind of influence over her future, as he seemed to be implying, then what did she have to lose? She
might as well pitch herself straight.

  ‘I think it’s important that our industry takes a much greater responsibility for its impact on the environment. And I think it needs tighter regulation. So that it’s fair and free from corruption,’ she said. ‘That’s the only way the industry can grow. By attracting all kinds of customers, not just the hard core of gambling addicts. In an industry like that,’ she said, finally meeting his eyes, ‘I think I could be at the very top.’

  He watched her in silence, as if mulling over her words. Then he smiled and stood and bowed. She wasn’t sure what had passed between them, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Jai Shijai had somehow changed the course of her life.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Savvy rolled over on to her back and stared up at the wooden ceiling fan, as it beat the humid air above her bed in Peace River Lodge. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes.

  She felt hopelessly and completely trapped. If the only prospect of human contact was with that ghastly Red, then what was the point of being here?

  Savvy didn’t want to get better. That was what these people didn’t understand. What good would sorting herself out do, when she’d already lost everything she’d ever loved?

  She rubbed at her tears with the heel of her hand, her chest shuddering with grief.

  She needed a drink so badly . . . A line, anything.

  She could feel the walls closing in on her. She needed something – anything – to make the pain go away.

  She would give anything to just . . . disappear.

  The ceiling fan spun hypnotically above her.

  She slowly got to her feet and stood there, watching it turn and turn, as the shadows stretched longer and darker on the walls.

  She picked up her dressing gown and its long white cord.

  Everything could stop.

  Just stop.

  The slow beating of her heart was like the ticking of a clock.