Together they read books Chi-Wen smuggled in from the professor’s old library: the classics, science, geography. The English Chi-Wen had begun to learn in his early school years had improved so much under the professor’s tutelage that they’d even argued philosophy and religion in that strange sounding foreign language: Ni-Fu, the romantic scientist, Chi-Wen, the practical Taoist.
The old man sighed, “I’ve always believed China to be the most wonderful country on earth.”
Chi-Wen nodded. “My father used to say ‘the East is the place where things begin, where the sun rises, where the wind is born.’ ”
“It’s also a place betrayed too often.” The old man looked directly at his young protégé. “Everywhere there are old men with power — not because they are wise or just, but simply because they are old men.”
“I’ve been taught to respect my elders,” Chi-Wen spoke woodenly. “Not to question.”
“Sometimes questions are important.”
Chi-Wen looked away to ladle another spoonful of soup.
“I’m not hungry,” Cheng said, tears filling his eyes. He’d given up everything to discover the mystery of shou, to give mankind the gift of longevity. So much. His home in Shanghai, his family, and now his freedom.
How ironic, he thought sadly. As an old man, he finally realized change was essential to launch China into the twentieth-first century. He looked at Chi-Wen, appreciating his fear, wondering how to make him understand that without the cycle of ages, change would never occur.
Hong Kong
Some say the Peninsula Hotel is Hong Kong, standing like a beacon on the tip of Kowloon, facing the “Star” Ferry that carries thousands each day to the Central District on Hong Kong Island. This grand old lady of world hotels, “the Pen,” was built in 1928, when travelers took many weeks and trunks to reach Hong Kong. A colonial institution, it maintained the British tradition of understated style, good taste, grandeur, and elegance.
Twenty minutes after leaving the airport, Lili’s limo had maneuvered through thick early morning traffic, then joined the Peninsula’s fleet of green Rolls-Royce limousines. Her driver hastened to escort her to the entrance where a white-clad pageboy held open the etched-glass doors to the ornate-columned and gilt-corniced lobby.
Although not quite half past seven in the morning, smartly suited men and women sat at marble tables, sipping steaming cups of coffee while perusing the latest economic news in the Hong Kong Journal. By early afternoon, the scene would change to high tea with British scones, cucumber sandwiches, and a string quartet.
“Welcome to the Peninsula, Dr. Quan.” The desk manager was a sleek-haired Chinese whose nametag read, Mr. Wong.
“Thank you, Mr. Wong, but —”
“Your room is ready. The bellman will take your luggage.”
Before Lili could register further protest, the manager had turned to help a Texas businessman and his wife. “I’m afraid we’re all booked, sir. It’s impossible to change your room.”
“Look, pal,” the Texan shouted, “for eight hundred U.S. big ones a night, I don’t think it’s asking too much to be able to see the goddamn water.”
“But sir —”
“Don’t ‘but sir,’ me. We came all this way to see the sights and hell, we’re gonna do just that,” he bullied.
The manager held his ground. “I wish I had more rooms to give.”
“Why don’t you check your computer.”
Wong was polite, but firm. “I know we’re booked.”
Fascinated, Lili watched the apparent standoff when she saw the Texan slip a large bill across the counter.
Checking that the concierge had his back turned, the manager carefully palmed the bribe, then switched on his computer. “Actually I think there is something on the fifth floor.”
“I thought as much.”
“A win-win situation.”
Lili whirled around to see a white-suited man in line behind her, preparing to light a cigarillo. “Beg your pardon?”
“The manager saves face and the Texan gets his room. Win-win.”
“I see.”
“Especially in this part of the world,” the man continued. “It’s essential that everyone’s special needs be satisfied.”
“Dr. Quan?” The bellman was standing in the open elevator.
“Oh, yes. Excuse me.”
As she reached the elevator, Lili turned to catch another glimpse of the strange man with the mustache and the Z-shaped scar on his face. Except for the trail of blue smoke from his cigarillo, there was no trace of him at all.
As soon as the elevator doors closed, a young Chinese man sitting at one of the marble tables folded his copy of Renmin Ribao (the People’s Daily) and headed for the lobby pay phone.
The room valet deposited her bags in a large, high-ceilinged bedroom, flipped on the TV, set the air-conditioner to cool, opened the curtains, and then disappeared, returning with an elegant fruit basket and a sandalwood box filled with wrapped designer soap.
“Gifts from the management. And this,” he said, pulling a sealed envelope from his jacket pocket, “was delivered just before your arrival.”
“Thank you.” Lili reached for a few dollars from her purse, but the valet declined the tip, assuring her that “everything had already been taken care of.”
He was gone before Lili opened the envelope that contained a plane ticket to Xi’an via Beijing dated for the next day. Although there was no note, its source seemed obvious.
“Damn it,” she said out loud. Rather than appreciation, Lili was irritated by Seng’s apparent generosity. She hadn’t asked for any of this — not the Rolls-Royce limousine, not the room in this world-class hotel with its marble bathrooms, not the free ticket to Xi’an. She would have preferred to pay her own way at the Holiday Inn. None of this made sense to her.
Confused, she opened the sliding door and stepped onto the balcony. It was only mid-April and already there was more than a trace of the humidity that would become unbearable by June. Lili removed her sweater and took a deep breath. She could smell the dahlias in bloom. Her eyes drank in the sights. From the sixth floor, she could see Kowloon, hazy through a humid gray mist. Across Victoria Harbor, a “Star” Ferry pulled away from the pier.
“Damn it,” she declared again. “I’m lucky to be in this fabulous city. Why not enjoy it?” She returned to her room and headed for the shower. Today she’d see the sights. Tomorrow she’d think about Dr. Seng.
After a quick shower, Lili changed into jeans and a T-shirt and headed for the hotel lobby where the concierge advised her to start her exploration of Hong Kong with a half-day city tour. The air-conditioned double-decker leisurely circled the island, making stops at Victoria Peak, the Typhoon Shelter, Repulse Bay, and Aberdeen while passengers listened through plastic earphones to commentary taped in almost any language from English to Swahili.
At the Central District, Lili decided to take off on her own, weaving through the crowds on foot. Her guidebook described Hong Kong in hackneyed epithets — “a cement jungle,” “a bustling port,” “a capitalist paradise.” What struck Lili, as she headed across Connaught Road was the noise. The streets throbbed with competing sounds, all seemingly set at maximum volume: the staccato clickety-clacks of Mah-Jongg tiles; the beat of rock, pop, soul, even Cantonese opera; the blaring of Mercedes and Rolls-Royce horns; the pounding of jackhammers and pile drivers; a dozen tongues and dialects vying for the ears and eyes of ever changing crowds.
Surprisingly, the natives seemed oblivious to the din. It was as if they possessed some inner barrier to the cacophony. Or perhaps they were simply too busy trying to succeed in this laissez-faire economy to notice. After all, in Hong Kong, the acquisition of money was a mania from beggar to business tycoon.
In the four-story Central Market, the noise was intermingled with the smell of everything from eels and crabs to quail and chickens. Lili stopped at one stall where a man in a greasy apron slit a black carp lengthwise in on
e deft movement, the heart still beating and pumping blood.
“You like?” he asked. “Very fresh.”
“I see,” Lili acknowledged, feeling queasy. It was close to one p.m. and she realized she hadn’t eaten since before five that morning.
Just beyond the market she found a restaurant packed with hundreds of diners eating, reaching, shouting, and gesturing for dim sum as Chinese waitresses wheeled trolleys filled with these ancient fast-food savories past their tables. Several bamboo poles were strung across the width of the dining area for patrons to hang the wicker cages of pet songbirds out for their daily airing. As she sipped tea, Lili relaxed, finding their musical chirping a pleasant counterpoint to the clattering of the trolley trays.
“Fun gwor?” a serving girl asked as she uncovered one of the steaming bamboo baskets.
Lili nodded, accepting a plate of three steamed rice flour triangles filled with pork, shrimp, and bamboo shoots. Delicious.
Another trolley rolled by. “Pai gwat?”
Lili realized her seat on the aisle gave her easy access to the besieged serving girls. “Thank you.” The spareribs with red pepper sauce were even better.
“I’d leave room for the saan tat if I were you. It’s the best hot custard tart you’ll find anywhere.”
“Excuse me?” Lili looked around, but by the time she realized the voice had come from just behind her, there was no one there. The table had just been vacated because the waiters hadn’t yet cleared the stack of empty dishes and baskets. Lili searched the restaurant, but the press of people still waiting to be seated obscured her view.
“You want saan tat?” a waitress was asking.
“What? Oh, yes, sure, I guess so.”
The waitress distracted her so that she missed the man as he left the restaurant. She wouldn’t have seen his face since his back was to her, but she might have recognized his white suit and the blue smoke from his cigarillo.
After lunch, Lili explored the boutiques and sophisticated westernized stores along D’Aguilar Street and the tiny shops up and down Stanley Street and Hollywood Road that all seemed to sell stereo and VCR equipment, cameras, jewelry, or watches.
Eventually, she reached Possession Street marking the border between Central and the down-to-earth old Chinese section of Hong Kong called the Western District. According to her guidebook, although Western was the very first district settled by the British, malaria soon decimated their numbers. By 1848, this area was a haven for Chinese immigrants.
Wandering down the narrow streets with their chop and jade carvers, opera costumers, fan makers, pottery shapers, and egg roll bakers, Lili felt she was as close to traditional Chinese urban society as she was going to get in this otherwise ultramodern city.
Turning onto Bonham Street West, she found a Chinese apothecary. Inside the dusty shop smelled of ginger, seaweed, and incense.
“May I help you? My name is Ching-yi.”
Lili spun around to face the local herbalist. The old man was missing his left eye, a not very well-made glass bulb filling the socket. “Just looking.”
Ching-yi was quite happy for her to investigate his potions. “Of course. Take your time.”
Lili looked at dozens of glass jars containing pickled bear claws, otters’ penises, and snake gallbladders.
Ching-yi pointed to an ancient wooden cabinet near the far wall, its tiny drawers filled with many of the two thousand traditional remedies used to promote health and vigor. “Dried snake,” he said, pulling out one of the drawers. “For chest pain.” Dried lizard mixed with green pellets filled another. “Best remedy for cough.”
He opened several more, explaining that powdered armadillo relieved morning sickness; elk horn, his recommended therapy for stomach complaints. He had racks of pungent smelling roots, snake venom antidote, tortoise shell, sea porcupines, and bats pinned up with their wings outstretched. Also dried birds’ heads, mushrooms, bottles of leaves, and slimy looking things in oil.
Finally, he handed Lili a mixture of freshly ground rose petals mixed with sugar. “This will keep you fit and strong,” he assured her.
“How much?”
“For you? A gift.”
Even though Lili assumed the mixture was only worth pennies, she felt compelled to pay.
The man thought for a moment. “The rose petals are free. But for two dollars I will read your fortune.”
Lili smiled. Saving face. “Sure, why not.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You tell me.”
The man nodded, took her right hand in his and gently traced the tiny lines in her palm. “I see that you have come from very far away.”
Lili almost laughed. With her Levis, Greenpeace T-shirt, and L.A. Gear aerobic shoes, it didn’t take a soothsayer to guess she was a tourist.
“But your journey has just begun.”
“Yes, I plan to —”
“You are going home,” he spoke in a low voice.
Dr. Seng’s words. Annoyed. “If you mean I’m going to visit China, I guess you could say that.”
The old man was not listening. Still holding her hand, he closed his one good eye. “When you look outward, you see the past. I wish to see the future.”
His breathing slowed as he seemed to fall into a trance. “It is a very difficult and dangerous journey.”
“And why is that?” Lili asked, amused by the man’s showmanship.
“Difficult because the path is long and winding. You will lose part of yourself before you find yourself. Just be wary of new friendships. The most cunning adversary first seeks to be your closest ally.”
Lili felt the man’s body shake. To her it seemed like bad theater, but then what did you expect for two dollars? “And why is it dangerous?” she prompted.
“Dangerous because the journey ends in — in —” He pulled his hand away as if burned by her touch.
“How does the journey end?”
The man opened his eye and studied her for a long beat. “I’m afraid that is all I can say. But you must not undertake such a trip in the year of the snake. Unlucky for travelers.”
“How does the journey end?” Lili demanded.
Almost a whisper: “It ends in death.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Lili declared. “I’m not going to change my plans just because of some superstitious hogwash.”
The old man’s frown telegraphed his disapproval. Exasperated, Lili paid him and started for the exit.
“Foolish girl. Two dollars — very cheap price for saving a life,” he said as she slammed the door and headed down the alleyway.
Hours later, Lili returned to her hotel room and placed a person-to-person call to Los Angeles. Dylan wasn’t home, so she left a message. “I probably won’t arrive in Xi’an for a week or two. I’ve decided to see a little of China on my own by train. I’ll write when I get there.”
The machine clicked off before she had a chance to say more. Just as well, she thought. She’d need time to sort out her feelings.
Annoyed by Seng’s tight control of her travel plans and refusing to heed the fortune-teller’s warning, she’d impulsively spent the afternoon arranging the leisurely detour Dottie had suggested. She was happily surprised by how easy it had been.
“We now return to our regularly scheduled program.”
Lili had the volume turned down and her back to the TV, so she missed the news announcing that earlier that day seventy-three-year-old deposed Party leader, Hu Yaobang, had died of a heart attack. According to the reporter, Beijing students were pouring into the streets to demand democracy.
As customary, whenever an American planned to travel alone to China, the American embassy in Hong Kong received a copy of the itinerary. Less than ten minutes after Lili’s request arrived, it was faxed to Washington, D.C.
Beijing, China
The young official completed his report.
Because this cadre had followed Lili to the CITS building, his Beijing boss was also awar
e of Lili’s change in plans. Now Foreign Minister Lin sat with the two other men in his office, his round face humorless, his voice tight. “This is a very delicate operation. I don’t have to remind you that we can’t have this young woman running all over China unsupervised.”
General Tong scowled. “We should have kidnapped her the minute she landed in Hong Kong. We’d have the secret by now.”
Han shook his head. “Patience, general. We must not be like the mantis seizing the cicada — blinded by greed.”
The foreign minister put the palms of his hands together as if in prayer. “Our comrade is right. The strategy proposed was correct. Remember this had to be a clandestine affair. Except for Dr. Seng, no one outside this room could know. That meant getting the girl to China without alerting the international community. Now it means getting her to Xi’an without alerting enemies in our own country. Force is not the answer. At least, not yet.”
“You have a new plan, comrade?” General Tong asked.
Lin studied his hands for several moments. “The young man you installed as Dr. Cheng’s lab assistant.”
“Chi-Wen Zhou?” Han offered.
“Have him flown here tonight. Tomorrow I will personally brief him. Then I’ll arrange to have him meet Dr. Quan’s train in Shenzhen and escort her to Xi’an.”
“He is trustworthy,” Han conceded.
“He is also young and handsome,” the foreign minister added.
Hong Kong
For several hours after calling L.A., Lili sat on her hotel balcony staring at the city illuminated by a neon sky. Tonight the stars’ light was particularly clear. Hong Kong shimmered before her like an iridescent jewel.
Lili considered the fortune-teller’s words: When you look outward, you see the past. All this light from the stars had traveled millions of years to reach earth. She was indeed looking into the past. This same light illuminated China just beyond the distant hills. Ch’uing tou-chi — the past, her mother had said, is a window to oneself.
She stared at China winking in the distance and wondered what she expected to find. She sighed, trying to sort out her feelings. Did she want to spite Trenton? Or had Dylan come on a little too strong too soon? Perhaps it was the fortune-teller warning her not to go? Or was she simply fulfilling her mother’s dying wish? Maybe there was something in Dr. Seng’s telling her to come home?
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