The Lake Ching Murders - A Mystery of Fire and Ice

by David Rotenberg

  But he didn’t. He sank to the floor and hung his head.

  Later that night, Fong awoke to the boy’s gentle crying. No words were spoken, but the two came together. The boy’s head rested in Fong’s lap and Fong ran his fingers through the young man’s greasy hair until finally the youth’s breathing deepened and sleep took him.

  Fong sat in the darkness and allowed himself, just for a moment, the grace of thinking of himself as the boy’s father.

  Then lines — favourite lines of his dead wife, Fu Tsong — came to him:

  Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

  To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;

  This sensible warm motion to become

  A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

  To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

  In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;

  To be imprison’d in the viewless winds

  And blown with restless violence round about

  The pendant world.

  Fong shivered as he remembered the final lines of the speech:

  The weariest and most loathed worldly life

  That age, ache, penury and imprisonment

  Can lay on nature is a paradise

  To what we fear of death.

  Fong traced the beauty of the young man’s face with his fingers — and remembered. On his release from Ti Lan Chou political prison and his banishment to internal exile beyond the Wall, the authorities had allowed Fong three hours in Shanghai to collect his things. They knew he’d return to the two rooms at the Shanghai Theatre Academy where he and his wife had lived.

  When he opened the door he was shocked to find the rooms empty. Unoccupied rooms in Shanghai were rarer than shrimp in shrimp dumplings. At first he was unable to enter. All the furniture was gone. The walls were bare. Everything that was “them” was gone. How small rooms appeared when emptied of their lives.

  In the bathroom he found the only vestige of Fu Tsong — her Complete Works of Shakespeare. It was open on the cracked tile. The ammonia smell of urine rose from the still damp pages.

  He had clutched the book to his chest for the entire seven-day, hard-seat train journey to the west.

  When he finally arrived on the edges of the Chinese known world, the party man who met his train assigned him the “job” of head constable, gave him a ration card and pointed to a mud-floored hut. Then he gave Fong papers to sign and departed, all with a bare minimum of talk. Eyes watched Fong as he moved in the small village. They all knew who he was — the traitor from the hated city of Shanghai.

  Silence was his constant companion. When work ended, the real punishment began — boredom. He had nothing to do. Nothing to read. Nothing to see. He wasn’t permitted beyond the village’s outer perimeter and he, of course, had no means of leaving. The nights seemed to grow longer and longer.

  In those tedious hours, he’d taken to devising ways of hiding Fu Tsong’s Complete Works of Shakespeare. She’d treasured the collection with its Mandarin translation. Now it was his. Now he treasured it. It was his last link to their life together. He understood that the authorities had allowed him to keep the book only so there was still one more thing they could take from him. It was a potent weapon.

  He initially thought of hiding the book in the village. Quickly he gave up that idea. They’d find it even if he buried it deep in the ground. It was only when he was mending his torn Mao jacket with the needle and thread he’d been given as part of his twice-yearly household rations that he landed on a solution.

  Every night by candlelight in the cold of his hut, he’d carefully cut single pages from the text. Then he sewed them together, the bottom of the first page to the top of the second. He found he could manage between fifteen and twenty pages before the rationed candle began to splutter. Once he saw the light start to give out, he’d pick open the stitches of his padded Mao jacket’s lining and insert the pages into the pockets that he had sewn there.

  Chinese characters are much more compact than English sentences. A hundred-page play in English could be as few as twenty pages in Mandarin. So coping with Shakespeare’s works in the Common Speech was not too time-consuming and more important, when carefully smoothed and inserted into the pouches beneath his coat’s lining, the pages were not noticeable beneath the jacket’s padding. But Fong’s English was very good and he was loath to give up any of the original versions of the plays. He understood, though, that trying to keep all the plays could endanger the entire enterprise. So he’d have to choose. Which plays? The answer came to him one night. It was simple. He’d keep the English language versions of the plays in which his wife had performed. Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Cymbeline, Othello, Hamlet and Pericles. The rest, the ones she hadn’t brought to life for him, he’d leave behind. Measure for Measure had been one of her favourites and she had insisted that he memorize many of the speeches from the play.

  Fu Tsong often sought his help with new roles. She found his didactic approach to the plays helpful. Over and over again he looked at plot twists and specific lines as a detective would the layout of a crime scene. Why would someone say that at that exact moment? Doesn’t her saying that imply that she knows this? Why would he go there rather than here? His most crucial insights were about what was missing from a scene or a character. What wasn’t said or done told him more than what was. His interpretations were occasionally difficult for Fu Tsong to incorporate, but from time to time they were invaluable. In the case of her Isabella in Measure for Measure, they formed the basis for one of her most famous performances.

  Fu Tsong loved Shakespeare.

  “Because of his deep humanity and his belief in love,” she said coming into the bedroom, a cup of steaming cha in her hands. Her favourite silk robe, sashed at her waist, clung to her slender frame. A bath towel swathed her hair. He stared openly at her beauty. She smiled then shook her head slowly.

  “What?” he asked, feigning innocence.

  “Later, Fong. Later. The play first. ‘That’ later.” Her laugh tickled the walls and lit up their modest rooms. “So tell me what you’ve found for me in this play. You have done your homework, I hope.”

  He had been examining the text on his lunch breaks. “I’ve read this Measure for Measure, Fu Tsong.”

  “That’s a beginning. So?”

  “It loses me. All the time, I’m off-balance with this one. Are there sections missing from it or something?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “But what the characters do doesn’t make sense.”

  She took that in and nodded, “An example, please.”

  “Well, Angelo’s the villain, right?”

  “So it would seem,” she said sitting beside him on the bed.

  Turning to her, he went on. “Then what kind of punishment is it for the villain to have to marry Marianne at the end? For that matter, how do the rewards in this play work anyway? I mean ‘Measure for Measure,’ the title, refers to equal for equal, doesn’t it? Rice bowl for rice bowl.”

  “It’s a reference to the long nose’s Bible. Biblical justice.”

  “Justice.” The word came from Fong’s mouth like something spat to the ground.

  She was surprised. “Fong?”

  Fong was on his feet, his angular body tense. “Justice! Justice! Who knows anything about justice? How does justice work?”

  “This from a police officer, sir?” she said, twinkling, but was careful not to mock.

  He turned to her. His face a mask of anger. “I’ve been a cop for twelve years and I don’t know if I’ve been involved in a single case in which justice was the issue. Retribution. Setting an example. Simple frustration. Putting an end to something. Prevention. Yes. But justice? I don’t know. When foreign delegations come to the city, we sweep the beggars off the Bund promenade. Is there any justice in that? When a peasant, freshly arrived at the North Train Station, looks at the wealth of the thieving Taiwanese and helps himself to some of it, is it justice that we
throw him in prison? Why shouldn’t the whoreson Taiwanese be thrown in prison for the theft his father must have committed to allow him that much money?” Fu Tsong knew better than to try and stop him. “I spend whole months as a police officer where justice isn’t even mentioned. Not even thought about.” He turned from her and stared out the window. A group of untalented student actors lounged on the grass as if they had somehow earned the right to green space in the concrete jungle that was Shanghai.

  Fu Tsong stared at him. She had come from a comfortable background. A loving mother and doting father. A whole family that had contributed to her education as an actress. Fong’s life had been much different. He pretended his life had begun when he met her. Only on occasion did she get glimpses into her husband’s past — most often when they went to Shanghai’s Old City. There he’d change before her eyes. People seemed to know him there. He’d stop standing erect and hunch over, crowd into himself, become a thing of that dank and dark place.

  It always amazed her. He became so unlike the proud man that she knew and loved. This was an urban peasant. A spitter.

  What she didn’t know was that in fact this was a night-soil collector. A person who makes his living from others’ waste products has a very different view of life than those who deposit their filled honey buckets on the street at night, and then retrieve them magically emptied in the morning.

  “Are the first lines in scenes in Shakespeare the first lines of the conversation?”

  “Fong?”

  He turned toward her. “Is the first thing said in a scene the first thing said between the characters?” he repeated.

  Fu Tsong thought about this for a moment. “Not always. Often it’s the first important thing said. Why, Fong? Have you found something in Measure for Measure that . . .”

  “This Isabella. This nun person?”

  “My role.”

  “Yes,” he threw up his hands and began to pace. “Yes, this unlikely casting of my lascivious wife as a nun.” She took the towel from her head and snapped it at him. “Fine. This aggressive, lascivious wife of mine who’s supposed to be a nun . . .”

  “Yes, dear — and your question would be?”

  “Isabella, this woman who wants to be a nun, who you’re about to play?”

  “Yes, Fong?” She tapped her foot in mock impatience.

  “What’s the first thing she says in the play?”

  Fu Tsong looked at him. He repeated his question. “What’s the first thing she says in the play?”

  Fu Tsong reached for her Complete Works of Shakespeare, but Fong pulled it away.

  “The first thing that this nun person says in Measure for Measure is ‘And have you nuns no further privileges?’ And what more privileges does she want? A second rice bowl, a new dress — a new lover — what? And isn’t it odd that that’s the first thing out of her mouth? This supposed virgin. And what about this Duke who walks away from his responsibilities? Hands over his kingdom to this villain Angelo. Is he not guilty of some offence? And what is he doing at the friar’s place when he leaves the court? He wants a disguise. Fine. But what does his opening line in that scene mean? ‘No, holy father; throw away that thought.’ What thought? That he is here for some lecherous rendezvous? And obviously from the way he’s speaking to the man, he has been there before. So is this Duke, this lecher, the man who will mete out justice? And going back to Isabella. Why is she anxious to join a nunnery? She doesn’t seem religious. Why is she going there? Is she spurned?”

  “I love it when you talk like that, spurned.” She patted the bed beside her. He sat. “Say it again Fong. Spurned.” Her voice was suddenly hoarse.

  “Spurned.”

  She touched his lips with a hand soft as velvet. Then her fingers parted his lips and entered his mouth. Her eyes never left his. His tongue tasted the perfume on her fingertips.

  She got to her feet. The sash whispered to the floor. “You going to spurn me, Fong?”

  “I believe not,” he tried to say, but no sound came from his lips.

  She smiled and let her robe fall away.

  He managed to say her name, but his voice was pulled so far back in his throat that the words sounded as if they came from someone else. Someone far, far away.

  After, entwined, she talked through her ideas of the character — of seeking piety, of celibacy and purity. He countered with Isabella’s refusal to face her own carnal desires. Her selfishness in the face of her brother’s death. Finally she threw aside the bedcovers and walked, lithe and naked, to the closet. He got up and sat on the side of the bed, waiting.

  She returned with her Peking Opera stage paints and brushes. She straddled his leg and held out two large combs. He felt her wetness — their wetness — on his thigh. He reached up and put her long hair behind her shoulders. Then he pinned back her long bangs.

  She stared into his eyes and began to talk. Just ideas of Isabella. Images. Flows of self. Currents of character. As she spoke he took the paints and brushes and began. Long ago she’d taught him the art of Peking Opera makeup. He’d been a swift and avid learner. Applying a beautiful artifice to the true beauty of her face sent razor shards of erotic shocks through his system. It was so close, as close as they could get.

  Over his shoulder she looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror. And slowly the naturalistic Isabella grew beneath the artificial surface of the makeup. When he finished, she allowed her hands to trace his naked torso.

  “Who’s touching you, Fong?”

  He always marvelled how her entire persona shifted beneath the paint.

  “Who’s touching you?” she asked again.

  “Isabella.” His breath was tight in his chest. Raspy as it hit the air.

  Then a smile appeared through the miracle of the classical makeup, a smile he’d never seen before on the wife he adored — the smile of a lascivious nun. Her eyes held his as she guided him into her — into Isabella — the complex leading lady of a white man’s play about justice.

  The crack of the rifle report was so loud that Fong smacked his head hard against the wall of the cell. It came from outside. From the courtyard. He looked around him. The boy from Sichuan province was gone.

  Fong sprang to his feet and tried to hoist himself up to the barred window. He was desperate to see out. “They couldn’t have,” he told himself. “They couldn’t have executed him.”

  Then they were in the cell, checking his hand and foot manacles. He started to resist then stopped himself and bowed his head. A long fingernail scraped beneath his chin and tilted his head upward. The politico’s face was smooth; his eyes had a renewed cruelty. The man canted his head slightly and looked into Fong’s eyes. Without a word the two communicated perfectly. The politico’s silence said, “Do you see, Traitor Zhong, that we completely control you and your life and your hopes?” And Fong’s silent response said, “I see.” But in his heart he said, “Those with real power do not need to use it. A real warrior wins without fighting. And you — you are a running dog who needs my help.” Then the real question rose in Fong. “Needs my help for what?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AN ENVELOPE IN A CAR

  That day the thug drove. The politico sat beside him. Fong was in the Chaika’s back seat. His leg shackles were tightened, but only one wrist was cuffed. The other manacle was clamped to the handle of the door. It didn’t bother Fong. After a day in the trunk, this was like moving from hard seat to soft sleeper on a train.

  The village of his exile was in the flat emptiness beyond the Great Wall. Few animals. Fewer people. Lots of land. More dust than soil. Loess. Fine granules that were always in the wind. Always sifting beneath the door, worming through the cracks in the mud walls and adhering to every orifice of the body. It was hard for Fong to adjust to waking with the taste of sand in his mouth. Even the cup of hot water he drank every night before sleep managed to collect a layer of sand from the time he cleaned it to the time he tilted the warm liquid into his mouth.

&n
bsp; But here, out the car window, was a different China. A land of rounded hills. An abundant, verdant China. Fully occupied. Every inch of every hill covered with sculpted mud terrace upon sculpted mud terrace. Each supported by hewn stonewalls. Each with hand-carved stone steps leading up to it and away from it. Wooden sluice gates permitted water from higher terraces to lower ones. Long narrow metal screws, some several yards long, moved water in the other direction. Layer upon layer, paddy upon paddy of green ripening rice shoots. All densely packed, until finally, on the valley floor, flat-bottom land. At last, a field that would support rice cultivation without the back-breaking work of building and maintaining terraces.

  “The hills look like giant peach pits,” Fong thought. It struck him as quintessentially Chinese that the peasants in the country turned hills into giant peach pits while artists in the city turned dried peach pits into incredibly detailed carvings of country life.

  Fong did not come from farmers, but he appreciated the labour and ingenuity involved in the terraces. The Chineseness of it all.

  A nature harnessed although never really subdued, still somehow wild.

  The car was thick with the politico’s cigarette smoke. Usually this wouldn’t bother Fong. He’d been smoking since he was ten. But now he wanted to smell the land. The deep, manure-laden land that gave birth to them all. To the black-haired people.

  He turned the handle and cracked open the window.

  Immediately the thug turned to face him. “Drive,” the politico barked. The thug’s shoulders tightened as if he didn’t take orders from the likes of the politico.

  “Odd response,” Fong thought.

  The thug turned back to the road. As he did, the politico pivoted in his seat, his left arm draped almost to Fong’s knees, “Close the window, Traitor Zhong.”

  Fong looked out the window and turned the handle. The pane squeaked its complaint. He sat back in his seat. The politico was looking out the front window again. But on the seat beside Fong was a stuffed manilla envelope that had not been there before. Fong looked up into the rear-view mirror. The politico kept his eyes on the road as he lit another cigarette. A smirk crossed the man’s lips as he exhaled a line of white smoke.