by Gus Lee
“No, sir.”
“I’ve got three guys who gave identical answers on every writ I gave last week. My writ file’s been moved inside my own cabinet. After I changed a question on the last writ, I still got the approved solution for the original problem.
“I’d can their butts right now, but they’re not the problem. They wouldn’t break in here. Someone else did. Someone smart enough to hive the answers once they knew the questions. The jokers in the section’d still flunk if they knew the questions. I know you guys are scared shitless of being kicked out, scared of facing your dads and telling them you couldn’t finish after making it this far. But humans don’t get to be West Pointers. Ony honorable humans.
“You want the ring, to graduate and throw the hat, right?”
“Roger that, sir,” I said with a thin voice. I saw my father, not as I had seen him last but in his Chinese Army uniform with a high collar like mine, Sam Browne belt strapped across his chest, rigidly upright, shoulders squared, his hard face resolute, showing no pain. What would he do? Could he turn in a comrade?
I saw Uncle Shim. I heard him say, subdue the self, and honor the rituals and proprieties. I breathed deeply; he’d turn them in. And I had made a promise to him in a eucalyptus grove.
“We got a joker in our ranks who’s working for all the ass-wrongs in the world. He won’t throw himself on a grenade to save his men. This guy’d throw a rifleman on the grenade and then write himself up for the Medal of Honor and let people buy him drinks.
“You know how that feels or you don’t. It’s the difference between being alive and just going through the motions. Feel bad, thinking about a classmate screwing the system?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. That’s duty! Working against your classmates—hell, I know it’s hard. Listen up: Big Dick is not your classmate. He has no classmates. He gave you guys up. He’s the wolf in the coop, taking victims in the night. And he’s eatin’ it up.
“Want to stop him?” His eyes burned into mine.
“You have options. You can help me. You can fight me. You can tell your classmates in the section that the P has figured their game and they’d better stack arms and fold their tents.”
He walked around his chair to look out the window. “Doesn’t matter. I’m going to get them. The ones who shot themselves in the foot, they’re going to face themselves. The Code’s going to get another test, and it’s going to sort this one out. That’s what I’m talking about, and you can write that in your book.”
“Sir, why not ask them who’s supplying their answers?”
“They’re organized, Ting. They won’t tell me. See, they’ve suspended West Point. They’re doing something else, something very bad, something from a bad dream. So I blow the whistle, have three guys found on Honor—with Big Dick laughing in the middle of my bedtime prayer. By God I want him! This place is for men who feel allegiance to something—not just college jocks and surfers! This guy’s shitting in our water supply!”
“How much time do I have to think this over?”
“Take your time.” He shrugged his shoulders and made a Maurice Chevalier face of resignation, with an extravagantly cinematic French accent. “West Point, she iss burning down; weedow and orphans, zey are on ze fire. Voilà—you have a fire hose. No problem, m’sieu; I can afford to give you …” He looked at his watch. “Five minutes.”
“How about one day, sir?”
He exhaled loudly. “Okay, it’s hard. Think it over during Christmas leave.”
Maher extracted my crushed cap from the litter on his desk and passed it to me. He righted his chair and sat in it, heavily. He rubbed his face again. I figured if I remained in his company for long, he wouldn’t have any features left.
He removed a notepad from his shirt. He wrote on it, then held it up for me to read. I squinted: OPERATION BENEDICT ARNOLD, followed by the names of three sectionmates. The cheaters. My heart sank. He ripped off the sheet, tore it up, then popped a Zippo and burned the shreds in an old metal ashtray.
“No op order for you; no privacy in barracks. I don’t want a paper trail that could alert the ene—the cheats. So it’s you and me, babes, plus any no-goat buddies you trust, to call in for paragraph 1-b, Friendly Forces.
Clint and Bob were goats, leaving me Mike, Sonny, Arch, Deke, Pee Wee, and Curve Wrecker, with Rocket Scientist, Hawk Latimer, and Spoon in reserve. I felt better.
“Go slow,” he said grimly. “Been studying collegiate cheating rings. They begin fraternally. They end in extortion and violence. Here, brilliantly, we’ve trained the cheaters to kill. You a killer, Kai Ting?”
I took a breath. “I’ve caused others to die,” I said.
27
GUAN YU
Southampton, Long Island, December 19, 1966
“Follow me, sir,” said Seff, the driver. I stepped through the lightly falling snow to the colonnaded portico.
“Good afternoon and Merry Christmas, sir,” said a large butler at the great entrance. “I am Watkins. May I take your bag?”
“No, thank you,” I said. Seff and Watkins wore Academy colors—black suits, gold buttons, gray faces. They were Caucasian, middle-aged, and, but for a vague disapproval, inscrutable. I probably earned a fourth of Seff’s income, but I wore my uniform better; his alignment was off, his shoes were scuffed, his salt-and-pepper hair touched his ears. Five demerits, I thought, worried about what I was seeing. The plush Lincoln Continental limo, the gloved chauffeur, the bruising butler, the size of the mansion, the diameter of the columns, suggested architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright and funding by Fort Knox.
From the door came the English hymn adapted from Beethoven’s Ninth, “Ode to Joy,” which offset the crash of the chilling surf beyond the house.
The entryway led to a cinematically grand, white staircase with a broad, black bannister. Above was a large skylight that might have been a trapdoor to heaven. It was bordered with small, brilliant lights which cheered the wintery morning. The compacted clutter of oversized red vases, turquoise pottery, tall, blooming greenery, and a series of broad teak display tables covered with illuminated objets d’art defeated the openness of the stairs and the skylight. I smelled tea. Beethoven came from all directions. To the left was a large sitting room occupied by more expensive collectibles; to the right was a long, black wainscoted hallway leading to a great library; to my front was the butler Watkins, patient with my circumnavigating, pop-eyed gawk.
“Just like home,” I said.
He left me in a sitting room. A snarling, green-splashed, white glazed lion confronted me with its fangs and I bared my teeth at it, saying “Arr!” I was surrounded by a profusion of large, museum-quality Asian art. A fire burned quietly in a magnificent stone fireplace. I heard footfalls and put down my bag.
“Hello, Ding Kai, and welcome to Long Island. You look devilishly handsome out of uniform. ‘Civvies,’ right?” She approached with a warm smile and dazzling teeth, offering both hands. I took both. I loved her voice, full of energy, ripe with sharp intelligence, laced with hidden meanings I hoped someday to understand.
“Hi. What do I do with your hands?”
“Exactly what you’re doing, but now you have to give them back. I’m so glad you came. Was the drive tolerable? Seff is so taciturn.” She wore a white linen shirt under a blue cashmere sweater, with old but snug jeans and open-toed sandals. She looked so sensational I felt completely stupid.
“You look great,” I said, proud of my understatement.
“Did you bring them?” she whispered.
I nodded. She took my hand and led me quickly through the entryway past a dining room fit for half the Corps Squads, past the gaze of a Chinese maid with raised eyebrows, and an older Chinese woman whose eyebrows were flat with the unrelenting judgment of a stern parent. I wanted to adjust my glasses. Pearl said nothing and we passed a dark, object-filled study that was as European as the sitting room was Asian. We entered a large, white sunroom with red upholstered
lacquer chairs. It was simple and uncluttered.
“My favorite place,” she said, looking out the great windows. “It’s the sea, motioning to me.” The ocean was angry, whitecapped, and silent. This sea touched Europe, not Asia. Beyond the windows was a great snow-covered lawn, and maples that in summer would shade mountains.
“Who were they?” I asked, motioning toward the hallway.
“The older woman is Zee taitai, my maid.” She looked at me. “She was my wet nurse, and has been with me all my life.” Pearl smiled hollowly. “She is very protective. It takes all my skill to go to the Waldorf, or visit you at West Point, without her.”
She sat down, licking her lips. I opened my Academy overnight bag and gave her the slightly aromatic, tinfoiled package.
She opened it and sighed. “May I?” she pleaded, almost squealing when she bit into the hot dog, drawing my admiration as she deftly combined Chinese enthusiasm with Emily Post delicacy. I had gotten six Coney Island red hots at the Port Authority.
“Ding Kai, come stay with us for Christmas,” she had said to me on the phone. “My father wants to meet you. You’ll have the best Chinese food in the world. Please do not bring gifts—Father is not Christian. But there is something I want you to get for me. I’m dying for red hots. My maid bought them for me at Coney Island when I was a girl, sad that I would make such big noises while eating gwailo food. Ding Kai, I eat the best Chinese and French cuisine available, but I can’t get hot dogs.”
Mrs. Zee entered with a tray of hot tea with crumpets and creamer, English style. She frowned elegantly at the hot dog wrappers, gathering them with surprising violence. She looked at me through the corners of her eyes, reminding me of the pretended indifference of a giant monitor lizard at the zoo as it closed in on dinner.
“Syesyeni, taitai,” thank you, I said, showing off.
“Bu k’e-chi,” she replied, looking at Pearl. She left with stately speed. We drank without the cream, watching the cold waves.
“Best if you call her ‘Ah Wang,’ her first name,” said Pearl.
“Her husband, who left her when she was a child bride, was Lao Zee.” Old Zee. “If I addressed her with the honorific, taitai, I could never have accepted her services. Taitai is for equals. You must address her correctly.”
I listened without blinking.
“This is the summer home. The Lims, our cooks, are not fashionable in our Manhattan place, and easier to hide here. Someday, I hope, the Lims can be accepted in the brownstone.”
“Accepted by who? By whom?” I asked.
“The wives of my father’s American business associates.”
I nodded. I looked at the sunroom ceiling windows. “This is just like the Weapons Room and the bad flicks in the gym.”
She smiled. “I enjoy West Point. It’s high theater. I enjoy it because I see it through your eyes.”
“What’s your father like?”
“You mentioned honor.”
I was never good in a chair. I stood and leaned against the windows. She stood close to me, and I looked at her face. She looked as good from the side as from the front. She turned and watched me study her. My heart surging, I leaned forward and kissed her gently. Her lips were soft. I liked the well-defined ridge on her lower lip. My heart boomed like one of Odin’s summer thunderstorms.
“I missed your smell,” I said, our faces very close.
“Chanel Number Five?” she said softly.
“Relish,” I said.
She smiled. Her pale skin seemed healthier. She kissed me, testing my restraint, tasting my interest in her, a chef at her stove, making her recipe boil. Her lips were soft peaches and sweet apricots, and I made a sound that merged purring, mewing, and moaning. She stopped, licking her lips, breathing deeply. She delicately cleared her throat. “I like your smell. It’s Chinese.”
I kissed her, gently folding her into me. She held me with surprising strength, pushing my cheek onto the cold pane. Her kiss was so sweet, her embrace so passionate, that I thought we were still kissing when I realized she had said, “Ding Kai … what about honor …” I was going to utter something declarative like “uh” when her lips returned urgently. “… and duty?” she said into my mouth, her lips warm, breathing fast, lilacs in spring while the snow fell and the ocean roared silently beyond the cold pane that framed my warm cheek. I tasted her and her mouth was honey and my blood was a thick confection as she moaned while subjecting me to her alchemy.
“Oh, sweet God,” she murmured, opening her mouth to me and we fit perfectly and I felt I knew all about her and about sublimity as she wrapped herself tightly against me. I was being transformed. I was sliding away from all I knew. My heart pounded and left me, for her.
“I thought,” she breathed, “you knew nothing about girls.”
“Something,” I said. “Not … nothing.” Again we kissed. She breathed on me like butterflies in spring and we kissed slowly in a void of time. Her hands caressed my back, running over my neck and shoulders to my arms. She squeezed them, kissing me more desperately, moaning, and she pulled away, breathing deeply through her nose, licking her lips, looking deeply into my eyes. “Arms are so hard … want to talk. About honor.” I kissed her again, wanting to go fast, knowing that we should go slowly.
“Why … ask me?” she murmured against my mouth.
“Smarter … older,” I said, not thinking, amazed I could speak and kiss at the same time.
She pulled back. “Fine thing to say,” she said clearly.
I had tied up. “You are smarter. You wouldn’t have said that.”
She smiled. “You kiss very well.” She licked her lips. “For a dummy.” She stepped away, picked up the teacups and gave me mine. They rattled in high clinking notes. She sat down. I breathed.
“So talk, Dummy Syensheng,” Mister Dummy, she said.
It was very tough. Closing my eyes made it easier. Honor and duty. I took a deep breath.
“Pearl, we have an Honor Code. ‘A cadet does not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.’ ”
“Vassar has an honor code,” she said.
“You go to Vassar?”
She nodded.
“I thought you went to something like night school.”
“I didn’t want you to think that I’m rich,” she said.
“Pearl, I don’t think you’re rich. You’re past rich. So how come you wanted to hide this?” I asked.
“My father’s wealth has been a liability to me,” she said. “We’ll talk of this later. Tell me why you’re worried about honor.”
I gathered my thoughts and explained the basics of Major Maher’s request for help.
“Ding Kai, why’s this Honor Code so important? There’s little cheating at Vassar, but it happens. Copying term papers by a few marginal students. But you talk about it as if it were so serious. Your Honor Code sounds like the old days. You know, Chinese legalism.” She made the motion of slitting the throat; Chinese justice meted out death for most offenses. “I think expulsion for knowing about cheating is very unfair, and even unrealistic.”
“It’s West Point. The Code’s the hardest. Pearl, it’s like Guan Yu honoring his promise to free Ts’ao Ts’ao, the great evil one, even though it’d later kill him.” Ts’ao Ts’ao was the powerful, charismatic minister who illegitimately sought to be emperor during the Three Kingdoms, after the fall of the great Han dynasty. In Chinese lore, he was the equivalent of the Western devil, whose very name inspired superstitious fear.
“Guan Yu was honorable. But Ding Kai, he’s from an old fable.”
“Pearl, you know the Hanlin Academy, the Wen-lin, right?”
“The Culture Forest, the Forest of Pens?”
“Yes! West Point’s the Hanlin. We took the pledge of the brothers of different blood in the Peach Orchard by the Yangtze kang, except it was at Battle Monument by the Hudson kang. Our honor allows us to lead men in battle, to protect others, even unknown and unrelated by blood.”
“I
t sounds quite romantic,” she said. I couldn’t be sure she was being totally sincere.
“Here’s an analogy: Guan Yu made the pledge to his brothers. What if he made a pledge to turn in any cheaters, and the cheater turned out to be one of his brothers—like Liu Bei or Chang Fei? My Honor Code, Pearl, says I have to turn him in.”
Pearl Yee’s great, penetrating eyes expanded and her mouth opened. “Ding Kai—that is like Chinese honor.”
“Yes. It requires Confucian perfection, larger than any one of us. We’re all mutually responsible for protecting Honor.”
“So—violating the Honor Code is like forfeiting family honor. You’d breach clan duty.”
“Yes,” I said. “Dead on.”
“Oh.” She bit her thumbnail.
“Could I do that for you?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, almost to herself, drinking her cold tea and pouring fresh, then holding the hot cup in both hands. “Guan Yu would protect your school, even if it cost him a brother. He served chih shan, moral perfection. Honor is best. I’m surprised that West Point’s focused on honor. When I visited you three weeks ago, I thought your school was the most American place I had seen. It also reminded me of a prison, or a monastery. How can you learn about China there?” She sighed. “Who could guess that under all those white faces, is the heart of K’ung Fu-tzu? Well, you should help your professor. Get the cheaters, whoever they are. Ding Kai, please be careful. You know what happened to Guan Yu on the moral path. He had his head handed to him.”
“Thank you, Pearl,” I said, looking into her confident gaze. “You synthesized the Code.”
In the background, “Ode to Joy” ended its fifth or sixth rendition. Now a chorus of heavenly women’s voices sang, “Glo—–ria, in excelsis Deo, Glo—ria, in excelsis Deo.”
“I thought your father wasn’t Christian,” I said.