Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha

by Dorothy Gilman

  Now, at nearly six o'clock in the afternoon, she sat on a bench 1,809 feet above Hong Kong and looked down at the city, its buildings crowded into what looked to be an incredibly narrow strip of land between the Peak and the water. She admired the great expanse of intensely blue harbor with its ferries scooting about like water bugs, and presently she leaned over to remove her shoes and blissfully wriggle her toes. When a playful wind tugged at her hat she removed it, too. Glancing off to her right she saw that the Man with the Attaché Case had also found a bench and she was about to concede victory to him—although not without resentment— when she saw him lean over and remove his shoes, too. Human after all, she thought, and at once both her tired feet and her hunger seemed small sacrifices to have made; she sat and contentedly rested, allowing herself to think ahead to a very good dinner, a long soak in a hot tub, followed by a few Yoga exercises and then some very concentrated thinking on what to do next about Sheng Ti.

  Idly she looked down at the packages she had carried all over Hong Kong: Cyrus's tie and the ivory Buddha, and on impulse she unwrapped the tie and held it up to the light. Did Cyrus like this particular shade of blue, she wondered now, doubtfully, and then she put it aside to unwrap the Buddha, eager to see its superb carving again.

  Drawing it from its string and wrappings she noticed a thin slip of rice paper taped across the Buddha's right hand and with a frown she tore it loose. She was about to toss it into the wind when she noticed words written in tiny script on the rice paper. Curious, she held it closer and read:

  If you want to see Sheng 77 he sleeps at 40 Dragon Alley in shed at back, after 10 p.m.

  4

  I.N A STATE OF CONSIDERABLE ASTONISHMENT MRS. Pollifax slipped her feet back into her shoes and without exploring the Peak any further, without even venturing into the tower, she boarded the next tram back into the city.

  "How. . . ?" she asked herself, and then, "who. . . ?" and then, "when . . . ?"

  As the cable car descended at what seemed a perpendicular slant, she gazed unseeingly at the tops of green trees and the roofs of villas hugging the sides of the mountain and reconstructed the scene in her mind. Mr. Detwiler had removed the Buddha from her grasp and summoned the girl Lotus; it was not likely the message had come from him after his refusing to produce Sheng Ti. "Have Mr. Feng wrap this," he'd told the girl, but she could not conceive of Mr. Feng adding the message to the Buddha, either, when he'd not even cared to admit Sheng Ti's existence.

  The tram reached the bottom and Mrs. Pollifax made her exit, crossed the boulevard and limped wearily down Garden Road toward the Hong Kong Hilton. Her reasoning had eliminated all but the girl Lotus, in which case—if it was she who had attached the rice paper to the figurine—she must have been eavesdropping and have heard everything said in the back room.

  They all eavesdrop there, she thought crossly. First Mr. Detwiler, then the girl . . . had Mr. Feng also listened in somehow to her conversation with Detwiler?

  The Man with the Attaché Case was still behind her as she reached the Garden Road entrance to the hotel, and she resisted the urge to wave to him and tell him that he could have his dinner now. It seemed a pity to curb such an insouciant gesture, she thought; after ail, they had spent the afternoon together sharing a number of interesting experiences, his feet hurt and he must be as hungry as she was, but she reminded herself that he would feel a dreadful failure if he discovered that he'd been noticed. She wondered if he would be waiting for her when she ventured out again at ten o'clock to find Sheng Ti.

  He was still behind her when she walked through the entrance and found herself at ground level in a mall of shops filled with all kinds of glamorous objects: cameras, watches, gems, rugs, curios. Hurrying along, eager now to get to her room, she passed a shop featuring objets d'art with a Buddha in its window very similar to her own, and with its price tag conspicuously displayed. Mrs. Pollifax stopped, and rather sheepishly walked over to the window to examine both the Buddha and its price tag. She found the Buddha definitely inferior to her own and yet it bore the price of—here she did hasty calculations in her head and was shocked to discover that in U.S. money the ivory Buddha in the window cost almost seven hundred dollars.

  She thought crossly, / think I need that very hot bath now because I am receiving too many jolts . . . Mr. Detwiler—who is suspected by Carstairs of being a traitor—has just presented me with a carved Buddha worth a great deal of money . . . No one at Feng Imports will tell me a thing about Sheng Ti and yet his address turns up in a package like the message in a fortune cookie . . . I'm being followed and don't know why . . . The gift can be a bribe, the address on the rice paper a trap . . .

  With her surveillant trailing despondently behind her Mrs. Pollifax rode up the escalator to the main lobby where she picked up her key at the desk and entered the elevator. Her last glimpse of The Man with the Attach^ Case was of him sinking gratefully into a soft and embracing chair, while in turn she was grateful that he couldn't follow her into her room to see her, too, sink gratefully into a soft chair.

  By nine o'clock, however, Mrs. Pollifax had thoroughly revived. Having treated herself to dinner in her own room, as befitted a person afflicted by jet lag and by conflicting signals from Feng Imports, she was ready for her nocturnal adventure. No garden-of-roses hat tonight: she tied a dark kerchief around her head to match her dark slacks and openneck shirt, and after tucking map and flashlight into her purse she proceeded to plot a zigzag exit from the hotel, taking the elevator to the second floor and then the staircase down to the lobby. Here she made an open dash to the escalator that deposited her in the mall at the lower level, where she browsed through the shops that were still open, spent a few minutes watching two giggling young women take their blood pressure at a machine placed in the mall for that purpose, was enchanted by all the flashing lights and marveled at such an invention. Certain at last that she wasn't being followed she walked out into the street, continued walking for several blocks before hailing a taxi and was driven through streets ablaze with gaudy reds, golds and glittering white neon: Hong Kong at night.

  It was ten minutes past the hour when she stumbled over the bench on which she'd sat that morning; Dragon Alley was distressingly dark, its windows shuttered and barred for the night. She discreetly shone her flashlight just once, at number 40's gate, and then opened it to enter the backyard. It was brighter inside here than in the street, for lights as well as music spilled over from what appeared to be the rear of a nightclub in the next building. In the reflected radiance she could see the silhouette of a small hut or shed and a slim figure seated on a bench outside of it. Mrs. Pollifax moved toward the figure cautiously.

  "Oh!" gasped the figure and jumped up. It was the girl Lotus, her white skin gleaming like porcelain in the dim light.

  "So it was you," whispered Mrs. Pollifax.

  Lotus whispered back, "Follow me—it's not safe here! Ssh—very quiet please."

  Mrs. Pollifax obediently followed her into the deeper shadows and past the shed to the rear of the nightclub or restaurant that adjoined the yard. A door was opened, she was led into a dark hall and then into a room on the left that was illuminated by a solitary oil lamp on a table. Sitting nervously beside the table, looking ready to bolt at any moment, was Sheng Ti.

  "Xidsnsbeng!" he cried, springing to his feet. "I could not believe!"

  Mrs. Pollifax, laughing, grasped his outstretched hands. "It's me—I mean it's I, Sheng Ti. Isn't this a surprise, isn't it wonderful?" But even as she greeted him she was shocked by his appearance: he was a young man whose attractive round face was made to be cheerful and lively, but his face was haggard now, the eyes dulled by worry. "Sheng Ti," she said, "they wouldn't let me see you, why?"

  He burst into a torrent of Chinese until Mrs. Pollifax turned questioningly to Lotus.

  The girl placed a steadying hand on Sheng Ti's arm. "Please—sit down," she said, indicating three chairs neatly arranged at the table.

  It was a lit
tle like meeting in a cave, thought Mrs. Pollifax, glancing around the small room. A blanket had been hung over the one small window in the wall and the oil lamp cast flickering shadows over them and turned their faces a dull gold. "Why?" she repeated. "Why didn't they want me to see you?"

  Sheng Ti sucked in his breath with a small hissing sound. "If they know I see you now—"

  "Yes?"

  "They would kill. "

  Startled Mrs. Pollifax turned to Lotus. "You believe this?"

  "Oh yes," the girl said simply. "Something is very wrong now at 31 Dragon Alley, you know? It was a small thing at first, just a whisper for me, until I began to speak with Sheng Ti and then we became friends—"

  "We love," put in Sheng Ti.

  Lotus blushed and smiled. "Yes, we love each other—this happened and it is very beautiful, this—but we have to meet secretly, you know? And when I learn what they ask of him"—she shook her head—"something is very wrong."

  "What do they ask of him?" demanded Mrs. Pollifax. "Tell me. Please. It's important."

  Sheng Ti began haltingly. "At first very okay," he said. "I come here before Lantern Festival—"

  "September," put in Lotus.

  "Yes. And worked in shop, oh very okay. But near new year—" He shook his head. "Everything change. Many fights have Mr. Feng and Mr. Detwiler, I hear them behind door. And then they give me new jobs." Obviously frustrated by his new English he turned and spoke to Lotus in Chinese.

  "He says," continued Lotus for him, "that he did not mind stealing back in Turfan, in mainland China, because it was to keep alive, but as you know he hoped by leaving China he could go to school and learn."

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. "Yes, and what is his new job?"

  "Stealing," Lotus said. "For two months he was taught by a man named Hoong to pick pockets and now they have put him to work stealing from people's pockets."

  "They what?" gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

  Sheng Ti nodded. "Everything hell now, bloody hell. Mr. Detwiler hit me. Very nasty all the time. Mr. Feng has to run things more and nasty, too. Mr. Detwiler take heroin now," he said. "I see once—the long needle and white powder. He hit me again when I see."

  "Oh dear!" murmured Mrs. Pollifax with feeling.

  "Yes."

  "But what do they have you stealing?" she asked.

  "Passports," he told her.

  This was unexpected. "Passports?" she repeated. "Not money?" He shook his head, and fumbling for the rationale behind this she said, "How many? What kinds? From whom?"

  Lotus answered for him. "He does not tell me all he does but I know this: they give him a very elegant suit and shoes and tie and they send him to the Government House or sometimes to the airport and twice I have seen the passports he stole. One was Bulgarian, one Canadian." Sheng Ti spoke and she nodded. "He says he's stolen eleven of them now for Mr. Detwiler."

  "Eleven," murmured Mrs. Pollifax, frowning over this.

  "I would not know anything if Sheng Ti and I had not spoken," confided Lotus. "Everything is hidden, concealed from me, for I do invoices, letters, and dust the shop. But I have heard the quarrels between Mr. Feng and Mr. Detwiler, heard the sound of them at least, and—" She shook her head. "There is something very wrong. Sheng Ti would like to run away but they've taken all his papers and how can he go anywhere without papers?"

  Mrs. Pollifax leaned forward and said earnestly, "Don't let him run away, ask him please to stay and help. Because the people who sent him to Feng Imports know something is wrong—it's why I'm here.

  "And they will help you," she said, turning to Sheng Ti, "if you help them. " She was remembering Bishop saying, We 're prepared to offer him immigration to the United States but only if he gives fair value in return, it has to be earned, there has to be enough. She dared not speak of it, for there was not enough, not yet. "Could you learn more?" she asked of Sheng Ti. "Could you follow Mr. Detwiler, find out where he goes, whom he sees? If you can get information for me I promise you that you'll have your papers back, and a new job, and schooling . . . I've been told I may promise you this. But first—first it has become terribly important to find out what's happening at Feng Imports, and only you can do this."

  Sheng Ti frowned; he looked at Lotus, his eyes questioning, and then he gave a bitter laugh. "Why do I stop to think? I would do anything to get away, anything. And you give me hope?" He spoke to Lotus in Chinese and she nodded.

  "He will do this. And I too if I can."

  "Good. They don't suspect me—I don't think—except why did they have me followed this morning after I left the shop?"

  Immediately she was sorry she had mentioned this because Sheng Ti leaped to his feet looking terrified. "You were followed? Followed here?" he cried.

  "No, this morning, after leaving the shop. I promise you no one followed me here tonight," she told him.

  "But they may still—I must go," he said desperately. "Oh my God. Please—what is to be done?"

  "Do sit down," begged Mrs. Pollifax.

  "No—let him go," Lotus said. "Go back to number 40, Sheng, you haven't slept for two nights, I will tell you later what she says."

  He managed a wan smile, but he left, nevertheless, after one anguished look of entreaty at Mrs. Pollifax.

  "They have not frightened you?" she asked Lotus.

  "No, but I am frightened for Sheng Ti," the girl said. "He is afraid of being sent back to mainland China, where he'd certainly be placed in a labor camp this time. It is very serious to have no papers, you know?"

  Someone knocked on the door and Mrs. Pollifax discovered the atmosphere had so infected her that she, too, jumped and turned a startled face to Lotus. The girl went to the door and opened it an inch, speaking in Chinese to whoever was in the hall. When she returned, closing the door behind her, she said, "I sleep here with two other girls, I had to pay them to stay away but now they want to go to their beds." She said anxiously, "You will have to go, but what am I to tell Sheng Ti?"

  Mrs. Pollifax brought out her memo pad and wrote in it, tore out the sheet and handed it to her. "This is my name," she told her, "and this is where I'm staying, and that's my room number. Both you and Sheng Ti had better memorize this and bum it." She shook her head. "We simply must find some other way to meet. Could one of you phone me tomorrow night at ten o'clock at my hotel?"

  Lotus nodded. "Tomorrow night, ten o'clock." Some of the anxiety in her face had cleared, leaving it grave and lovely again; she said shyly, "I'm glad you're here, I'm glad someone knows, it's been so lonely." With one hand on the door she turned and added, "He will work hard for you now, too—you will see." With the slip of paper tucked into her sleeve she opened the door and peered out. "Come," she whispered, "you can leave through this building, through the kitchen. I show you."

  Once out on the street Mrs. Pollifax's first reaction was to draw a deep sigh of relief and to admit how glad she was to leave the small dim room that had been filled—glutted, she thought—with Sheng Ti's fear and Lotus's anxiety. It was not a happy thought to realize that he must risk even more danger before he could be lifted out of Feng Imports; she would much prefer to have carried him away with her to place on the next flight to San Francisco but this thought only reminded her ruefully of how spoiled Americans could be: Sheng Ti lived the precarious life of a refugee, still without papers or identity.

  Her garden club, she decided grimly, was very definitely going to have to sponsor Sheng Ti—she would insist on it—and Lotus too, if their relationship continued. In the meantime she had to make sure that Sheng Ti survived physically ... It was possible that heroin was the explanation for Mr. Detwiler's sloppy reports to Carstairs's department over the past two months but she did not like the sound of those eleven stolen passports. She shook her head over it; no, she did not like the sound of that at all.

  Flagging down a taxi Mrs. Pollifax rode back to the hotel and entered this time by the front entrance, boldly, and once again rose in the elevator to room 614. Here she tossed her purse
on the bed and went to the telephone where she dictated a cable to Carstairs at the cover address in Baltimore: friendship renewed, weather cloudy, emily pollifax. When she replaced the receiver she saw by her travel clock that it was half-past eleven, and reflecting on what a long day it had been, she crossed the room to her suitcase.

  Drawing out pajamas and cold cream she suddenly stiffened as something hit her door with a violent thud.

  With a frown she dropped the pajamas and moved to the door. "Who is it?" she called.

  There was no answer.

  Cautiously Mrs. Pollifax released the lock and the door flew open, almost knocking her down as a man fell into her arms with blood streaming down his face. As she instinctively recoiled he slid to the floor and sprawled at her feet.

  She stared down at him, appalled: it was Mr. Hitchens.

  5

  Mrs. POLLIFAX'S INITIAL REACTION WAS astonishment: one talked with people on planes; one might even share a casual breakfast with them, but following this one did not expect to see them again, and certainly not late at night bleeding on the floor at one's feet. Accepting reality, however—for definitely Mr. Hitchens was here—she pushed the door closed and knelt beside him, one hand reaching out to gingerly explore what lay beneath his bloodmatted hair.

  Wincing at what she found she sped into the bathroom for towels, returned with a wet one and a dry one, pressed the dry towel to the bloody gash in his scalp and applied the wet one to the lines of scarlet lacing his right cheek like deranged embroidery.

  His eyes were closed but his lips had begun to move. "Something ..."

  She leaned closer to hear him.

  "... terribly wrong," he whispered. "How . . . how ..."