The sound of high heels heralded Angel’s return.
“You boys are moving in geologic time. What do you have for me?”
Bird and Twent explained.
Angel winced. “I’d really prefer not to be out there talking about the Dalai Lama’s urine.”
“But it’s the plausible scenario,” Bird said.
“This isn’t one of your novels, Bird.”
Bird blew. “What is it with you people? Is being a novelist considered some kind of disability?”
“Wait,” Angel said. “Forget poison. Forget pee. We don’t need that anymore. Don’t you see? He’s dying.”
“So?”
A witchy smile came over her face. “Think it through. How does it play out?”
“Well,” Bird said, “presumably, they fly him to the U.S. for treatment. Cleveland is the top place, apparently. Or Sloan-Kettering.”
Angel said impatiently, “Yeah, yeah, but what’s that going to accomplish? Buy him a few more months, maybe? According to the reports, he’s toast, right?”
“That’s the—yes, basically. It’s not curable.”
Angel tut-tutted. “You boys are being very slow today.”
“Okay,” Bird said. “According to traditional Tibetan custom, first they have to consult with the Nechung Oracle. Then the search begins for the new reincarnation of the living Buddha. Then—”
“You know,” Angel said, “sometimes it’s a real drag being the smartest person in the room. Never mind all that. He’s going to want to go home to die. Home? Tibet?”
“That would . . . ah,” Bird said. “Yes. Right.”
“And what’s Beijing going to say about that?”
“Whatever the Chinese is for ‘Forget it.’ ”
“Precisely. The bastards won’t even let the poor guy come home to die in peace.” Angel rubbed her hands together. “Boys, we just got dealt a royal flush.” She kissed Bird and Twent on the foreheads and walked off. She shouted back at them, “I’d have sex with you, but I don’t sleep with the help.”
“Mom sounds happy,” Twent said.
Bird regretted losing the poison scenario, especially after all that research. But he could always use it in the novel.
CHAPTER 13
COMRADE FA’S GREAT SECRET
Everyone is present, Comrade President,” Gang announced, opening the door to the secure conference room beneath Zhongnanhai.
The president of the People’s Republic of China entered. He nodded a collective greeting to the eight other members of the Politburo Standing Committee. It was not an occasion for hand-shakes and pleasantries.
Two men did not return President Fa’s nod: Minister Lo and General Han. Lo did not bother to look up from the papers in front of him. General Han regarded Fa as he usually did, with an attitude of condescension verging on contempt. Fa had made several concerted attempts at establishing cordiality with the general; Han disdained these baits like an old, fatted carp, serene and indifferent, lord of his own pool. He affected an air of simplicity and gruffness, the uncomplicated proletarian warrior, unswervingly loyal to the people and the party. On closer inspection Fa found this persona not entirely convincing. Han was oddly conversant about such recondite areas of expertise as French wine, moray eels, and Fabergé eggs. He could quote—at somewhat tiring length—entire routines (in Chinese) by the 1950s American comic pair Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. He admitted to a confidant later on that it was reciting these, rather than the 427 thoughts of Chairman Mao, that had kept him from going insane inside that suffocating prison cell during the Cultural Revolution. Like many Chinese who suffered terribly throughout that upheaval, he was still capable of a cognitively dissonant reverence for the man who had orchestrated such mass misery. Still the good soldier. Han had commanded a regiment of PLA infantry during China’s punitive 1979 invasion of North Vietnam and a decade later led another sanguinary corrective exercise, in Tiananmen Square. The rumor, never uttered above a whisper, was that Han’s own son, with whom he had a troubled relationship, was one of the demonstrators, never again heard from.
So Han had earned his hardness. Fa respected that but it did not altogether compensate for his pathological hatred of outsiders. In this, perhaps, Han was a disciple of Wei Yuan, the nineteenth-century Confucian mandarin who enunciated the policy still (quietly) adduced by China’s leadership: “Let barbarians fight barbarians.”
Fa noticed with a pang that ashtrays had not been set out on the table. “Comrade Minister Lo,” he said, “why don’t you begin?”
Lo leaned forward and spoke in a dirgelike tone. “As the members of the committee are now aware, there was an opportunity some weeks ago to avoid the situation now upon us. But that opportunity was”—he glanced at President Fa—“not taken.”
Fa’s jaw muscles clenched. He’d expected something like this. Gang had warned him. There had been much whispering and murmuring in the corridors of Zhongnanhai and party headquarters. Indeed, a torrent of whispers—a veritable gale, Gang reported: President Fa was showing “lack of steel” in the matter of the Dung Lotus.
The phrase “lack of steel” was no mild rebuke. Half the members of the Standing Committee—and indeed many among the party leadership—were metallurgical engineers by training. Moreover, Gang reported, Minister Lo had reportedly made comments “of a personal nature” about President Fa during a meeting of the Executive Committee of the State Council.
Then there was this unpleasantness: a pun on the president’s name was making its way through the Central Committee, causing sniggers. Fa—“to send forth.” Fan—“mortal.” Comrade President Fan.
Finally there was the article in Liberation Army Daily, the official newspaper of the PLA. Headline:
GENERAL HAN WARMLY PRAISES MINISTER LO
FOR DISPLAYING VIGOROUS FIRMNESS IN
COUNTERING TIBETAN GANGSTERISM
Outrageous! Fa thought. You could hear the sound of Han’s tank battalions warming their engines. A crisis in Tibet would give him all the excuse he needed for a grand culling of “gangster elements.”
So on this morning, Comrade President Fa was in no mood for pouting and theatrics.
“Comrade Minister Lo,” he interjected. “Shall we move forward, or are we going to spend all day talking about the past?”
Heads turned. Mouths opened. Lo stared. General Han’s eyes narrowed.
Lo said sullenly, “Our information is that they’re going to move him to Cleveland. Ohio. USA.”
“Is that all you have for us?” Fa said.
“The medical evaluation there will take between forty-eight and seventy-two hours.”
“But is it not already established that this is a terminal illness?”
“I informed you of that fact, Comrade, ten days ago.”
General Han chortled. “Maybe with all these prayers being said for him, there will be a miraculous recovery!”
Some laughed along. Han gave Lo a comradely glance and said, “Pity we didn’t act when we had the chance.”
Vice President Peng Changpu said, “Is it too late to put into effect what Comrade Lo proposed?” Peng’s nickname was “The Barometer”: always the first in the room to sense a change in the weather.
Lo sighed heavily to signal that it was too painful for him to relive President Fa’s tragic act of timidity. “The moment of opportunity has come and gone, Comrade. The moment he lands in America, he will be under the protection of their Secret Service.”
Han wagged his finger. “ ‘The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy. He does not allow the enemy’s will to be imposed on him.’ ”
Nods, murmurs.
Fa had wondered when Han would start quoting Sun-tzu. Atleast it was preferable to another endless Martin and Lewis recitation.
Fa smiled blandly at Han and said, “ ‘No leader should put his troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen. No leader should fight a battle simply out of pique.’ ” He skipped over the middle bit. “ �
�Hence the enlightened leader is heedful, and the good leader full of caution.’ ”
Veins appeared on Han’s neck. Lo came to his aid with his own contribution from The Art of War.
“ ‘Making no mistakes,’ ” he said, “ ‘is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.’ ”
Han grunted approval, as if to suggest that this conclusive apothegm had been on the tip of his own tongue.
Fa smiled. “What a truly learned committee we are, Comrades. Does anyone else care to share a favorite line from Sun-tzu?”
Several members laughed.
Fa turned to Xi Renshu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Xi was an avid consensus seeker. He could find the middle ground on the side of a cliff.
“Comrade Xi, assuming they petition to return, what would your recommendation be?”
“Assuming?” Lo grunted.
Fa ignored him
Xi frowned and said, “I’m not sure I understand, Comrade General Secretary. “Surely there’s no question of permitting him to return?” Xi glanced about the table in confirmation of the rightness of his perplexity.
“Very well,” Fa said, “let me clarify. Suppose we allowed him back?”
The air in the room turned to aspic. No one moved.
Xi, to whom this stupefying proposition had been addressed, stared at the president with open mouth.
Lo finally broke the silence. “With all due respect, Comrade, you’re thinking on your knees.”
There was an intake of breath around the table.
Fa said coolly, “You’re the one who’s been lecturing us about lost opportunities, Comrade. Very well, here’s an opportunity. Shall we not even consider it?”
General Han said, “It’s madness.”
“Thank you for your diagnosis, Comrade General,” Fa said.
Turning to the others, he said, “Comrades. There are two paths here. One whereby we wait for them to petition and then refuse. And endure the storm. Two, we seize the initiative and invite the Lotus in. But under certain conditions, of course, yes. Minister Lo and General Han can surely keep him in an iron cocoon once he’s in Lhasa. We should have no concerns on that score. Let us then ask ourselves, What do we lose by this? And also ask, What might we gain? Respect. Admiration. They will say, ‘China is confident. China does not fear old, dying men and their ridiculous fantasies about reincarnation. China is generous. China is bighearted. Truly, China is great.”
No one spoke or moved. The silence was total.
Minister Lo began to laugh. Louder and louder. He gripped his belly, as if it might explode.
The members of the Politburo Standing Committee stared at one another. No one seemed to know what to do. Lo continued until finally, gasping for breath and wiping the tears from his eyes, he brought his hand palm down upon the table with such a clap that Executive Deputy Premier Wu Shen jerked upright in his seat.
“Well, Comrades,” Lo said, dabbing at his eyes, “now we know Comrade Fa’s great secret! He wants a Nobel Peace Prize!”
BACK IN HIS OFFICE after the meeting, Fa loosened his tie, something he rarely did. His shirt was damp with perspiration. He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and stared into space. He felt more tired than he had ever been.
After collecting his thoughts, he buzzed for Gang, who, as was his practice, had listened in to the meeting through an earpiece.
“Well?”
Gang said, “Had you intended to propose that, about inviting him back to Tibet?”
Fa smiled at his aide. Gang knew him so well. “Since you ask, no. It came to me, you might say.”
Gang nodded. “That was my impression. Unlike you, Comrade.”
“Yes. I don’t seem to be myself lately.”
“Do you truly think this is the wise way to proceed?”
Fa considered. “ ‘To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the supreme excellence. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.’ ”
Gang said, “Sun-tzu is certainly getting a workout today.”
“It’s not without risk. I understand that well enough. Believe me. Do you think they’ll go for it?”
Gang shook his head. “No. Han wouldn’t permit it. Nor Lo. And they’ve been busy cultivating the others. Especially the ones with vulnerabilities.”
“Yes. Han’s probably telling everyone, ‘Can you imagine if we had made Fa chairman of the Central Military Commission?’ And Lo will be out for blood. I overruled him, and that his pride cannot bear.” Fa smiled. “Perhaps if I went to Cleveland, Ohio, and personally strangled the Lotus in his hospital bed.”
“It would be a start.”
“Gang?”
“Yes, Comrade President?”
“Do you think . . . I don’t know enough about this form of cancer, but do you think it’s possible that Lo’s agents somehow . . . gave it to him?”
“I’ve learned as much as I can about it,” Gang said. “Nothing that I have read persuades me that it is something you can cause in someone. But this is not my worry now. My worry is for you. Lo and Han are out there now. Calling you ‘Fa, Lotus Lover.’ ”
“In that case get my plane. We’re off to Cleveland. We can see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after we kill him.”
But Gang saw the look of pain and fear beneath it. He knew the signs. He said gently, “The nightmare, Comrade—it’s back?”
“Not yet.”
Fa lit a cigarette and was about to tell Gang, “Call Admiral Zhang,” then hesitated. He scribbled the characters on a piece of paper and handed it to Gang. Gang read it and looked up, nodded, and left Cool Limpidity to the silence of his thoughts.
CHAPTER 14
WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THAT MOVIE?
Bird would have killed not to have to go out for dinner at the Hoof and Woof on this particular Saturday night. (Or on any Saturday night, for that matter.) He was beat, beyond exhausted.
He’d gotten back to Upkeep late Friday night, weary from a long week of fomenting Sinophobia by day and banging away at volume four of his Armageddon tetralogy—quartet, whatever. All he wanted to do tonight was get into his pj’s, pour himself a mind-numbing bourbon, and reread what he’d written. But such pleasures were not on the agenda for tonight. No.
As he and Myndi dressed, Bird uttered the plea of many an American husband: “Say, how about we stay in tonight?” But he knew this would be a nonstarter. Tonight was Myn’s victory lap, her first night at the club since she’d made the team. And despite his annoyance over having to shell out additional hundreds of thousands for a couple of new nags, Bird felt that she deserved a round of applause. She’d worked hard for this. She was getting some nice recognition, too. EQ, the glossy bible of Horse World, was doing a big feature on her, sending a photographer—and stylist—out to Upkeep. How about that?
Bird felt a mix of fondness and amusement as he watched Myn try on different bits of jewelry. She couldn’t seem to make up her mind tonight.
“What about these?”
“Great,” he said.
“Walter.” Myndi sighed. “It’s not helpful when you say ‘Great’ to everything.”
“I liked the first earrings. I liked the second pair. The third made me want to bang my head against the wall for joy. I like the ones you have on now, too. But if you’d prefer, I’ll just say, ‘Boy, do those suck.’ ”
She sat in front of the mirror, fussing with her hair. “I never should have agreed to EQ. I’m only doing it for Sam.”
“Your trainer? Not sure I get that.”
“It’s such nice recognition for him. I couldn’t care less. By the way, they’re coming Wednesday. It’s an all-day thing. It would be nice if you were here, darling, for once. People are beginning to won-der.”
“Won-der? About what?”
“Our marriage. Zip me.”
“Well,” Bird said, “if it’s our marriage you’re worried about
, I say let’s stay in tonight and make whoopee till the cows come home. I’ll open a bottle of that ’82. Come on. Whaddaya say? Ruff!”
“You’re not planning to wear that cummerbund and tie? Oh, Walter, please. They look like something you’d get at Wal-Mart. These are people with taste.”
“No, darling, they’re people with money.”
“Well, they don’t wear cummerbunds and bow ties with missiles on them.”
The cummerbund and tie were last year’s Christmas present from Chick Devlin.
“We’re sitting at Harry’s table.”
“Oh, joy,” Bird lied.
“I don’t know why you’ve decided not to like him. He likes you well enough.”
“Well enough? You mean, the minimum permissible amount?”
“Walter. If you’re going to ruin the evening before it’s begun . . .”
They drove in silence to the club, where Myndi was received as a local heroine.
“You must be so proud!” people said to Bird. Over and over. He was proud. Genuinely. He just didn’t like people demanding that he confirm the fact for them.
Harry found Bird in a corner, where, after yet another you-must-be-so-proud remark, he had taken refuge. He sat with his vodka and tonic—his third—flipping through the pages of a coffee-table book about famous steeplechase horses with names like Lord Cardigan and Geronimo.
“Wally! There you are!”
Harry had at some point decided to call Bird “Wally,” a name no one else called him and one he particularly detested. Bird retaliated by calling Harry “Hank.”
“Hello, Hank.”
“Been looking all over for you!”
“Well”—Bird smiled—“here I am.”
“I just wanted to say thanks.”
“For what?”
“For being such a great sport.”
“I’m not really much of a sport. Little tennis every now and then.”
“No. About Myn’s horses. I’m thrilled that she’s letting me do this for her.”
The air went out of Bird. It had been such a crazy week that he’d forgotten to call the bank about extending the line of credit. Had Myn proceeded without telling him?
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