by Wilbur Smith
Once again Tug Harrison scented the intervention of the Ning patriarch in this dossier. It increased Tug’s respect for the power and influence of the family.
At the end of his national service, Ning Cheng Gong had gone into the Taiwanese diplomatic corps. Perhaps old Heng had not yet considered him ready to join the Lucky Dragon.
Once again young Cheng’s progress had been meteoric, and he had been given an ambassadorship within four years, admittedly it was to a small and insignificant little African country, but by all accounts he had done well. Once again Tug had been able to obtain a copy of his service record from the Taiwanese foreign office. It had cost him ten thousand pounds sterling in bribes, but Tug considered it a bargain.
In this dossier he had again found some evidence of Cheng’s unusual erotic tastes. The body of a young black girl had been fished out of the Zambezi river only partially devoured by crocodiles. There was certain mutilation of the corpse’s genital and mammary areas which had led the police to pursue further enquiries. They found that at the time the Chinese ambassador had been staying at a game lodge on the Zambezi south bank, near the girl’s village. The missing girl had been seen entering Cheng’s bungalow late on the evening before she disappeared. She had not been seen again alive. This was as far as the enquiry had been allowed to run, before being quashed by a directive from the president’s office.
Now the ambassador’s term of office had run its course. He had resigned from the diplomatic service and returned to Taiwan to take up a position with the Lucky Dragon company, at last.
His father had given him the equivalent rank of vice-president, and Tug Harrison found him interesting. Not only was he clever but he was goodlooking to the Western eye. His mother’s influence was discernible in his features; although his hair was jet black there were no epicanthic folds in his upper eyelids. His English was perfect. If Tug closed his eyes he could imagine he was conversing with a young upper-class Englishman. He was suave and urbane, with just the slightest perceptible streak of ruthlessness and cruelty in him. Yes, Tug decided, he was a young man with prospects. His father could be proud of him.
Tug felt the familiar stab of regret as he thought of his own feckless offspring, weaklings and wastrels all three. He could only console himself by believing that the fault must lie in their maternal line. They were the sons of three different women’all of whom he had chosen for their physical attractiveness. When you are young there is no reasoning with an erect penis, he shook his head regretfully, it seemed to inhibit the flow of the blood to the brain. He had married four women whom he would not have employed as, secretaries, and three of them had given him sons in their mirror image, beautiful and lazy and irresponsible.
Tug frowned at this shadow across his sunny mood. Most men give more thought and care to the breeding of their dogs and horses than they do to selecting a dam for their own children. Fatherhood was the only endeavour in his entire life in which Tug Harrison had failed dismally.
“I am looking forward to viewing your father’s collection of ivory,” Tug told Cheng, putting unprofitable regret out of his mind.
“My father will be pleased to show it to you,” Cheng smiled. “It is his chief delight, after the Lucky Dragon, of course.” As he said it, the Rolls sailed around another hairpin and directly ahead stood the gates to the Ning estate. Tug had seen a photograph of them, but still he was not prepared for the actuality. They reminded him instantly of those gigantic garish sculptures in the Tiger Balm Gardens in Hong Kong.
The Lucky Dragon entwined itself around the gateway like a prehistoric monster, glittering with emerald-green ceramic tiles and gold leaf. Its talons were hooked and raised, its wings were spread fifty feet wide, its eyes glowed like live coals and its crocodile jaws were agape and lined with jagged fangs.
“My goodness!” said Tug mildly, and Cheng laughed lightly and deprecatingly.
“My father’s little whimsy,” he explained. “The teeth are real ivory and the eyes are a pair of cabochon spinel-rubies from Sri Lanka. They weigh together a little over five kilos. They are unique and are valued at over a million dollars, hence the armed guards.”
The two guards came to attention as the Rolls slid through the gateway. They were dressed in paramilitary uniform with blancoed webbing and burnished stainless helmets similar to those worn by the honour guard at Chiang Kai-shek’s tomb in Taipei. They carried automatic weapons and Tug Harrison guessed that they had other duties apart from guarding the Lucky Dragon’s jewelled eyes. Tug had heard that young Cheng, using his military experience, had personally recruited these guards from the ranks of the Taiwanese marines, one of the elite regiments of the world, to protect his father.
Old Ning Heng H’Sui had left more than a few widows and orphans behind him as he hacked his way to power. Rumour had it that he had once been head of one of Hong Kong’s powerful secret societies, and that he still maintained close ties with the Tongs. He might now be an art collector and artist and poet, but there were many who remembered the old days and would dearly love to pay off a few ancient scores.
Tug felt no repugnance at all for the old man’s personal history, just as he felt none for the youngest son’s sexual foibles. Tug had a few secrets of his own, and knew the whereabouts of more than one unmarked grave in the African wilderness. He had lived his whole life in the company of, and in competition with, ruthless predatory men. He made no moral judgements. He accepted mankind as he found it, and looked instead for the profit to be made from its strengths or weaknesses.
Cheng returned the salute of the silver-helmeted guards with a nod and the Rolls passed beneath the Lucky Dragon’s arched belly and entered a fantasy land of gardens and lakes, pagodas and arched Chinese bridges. Shoals of jewel-coloured khoi glided beneath the lake waters, and flocks of snow-white pigeons swirled about the eaves of the pagodas.
The lawns were green and smooth as a silk kimono stretched over a pretty girl’s thigh. The rhododendrons were in full bloom. it was peaceful and lovely, in contrast to the tasteless dragon sculpture at the main gateway.
The Rolls drew up at the entrance to a building that reminded Tug of a miniature of the Winter Palace in Peking. The fountains that surrounded it shot a sparkling lacework of foam high into the cool mountain air. A cortege of white-jacketed servants waited on each side of the entrance to welcome Tug, and they bowed deeply as Cheng led him into the vaulted interior.
The panelled walls had been slid aside so that the gardens seemed part of the decor. The furnishings were simple and exquisite. The floors of red cedar glowed and the cigar-box smell of the woodwork perfumed the air. A few ceramic treasures which would have graced any museum collection were arranged to full effect, and a single flower arrangement of cherry blossom was the centre-piece of the room.
“One of the maids will make tea for you, Sir Peter,” Cheng told him, “while the other draws your bath and unpacks your suitcases. Then you will want to rest for an hour. My father invites you to take lunch with him at twelve-thirty. I will return a few minutes before that time to take you up to the main house.”
Tug realised that this was simply one of the guest houses, but he showed no sign of being impressed and Cheng went on, “Of course, all the servants are at your command. If there is anything you should want,” Cheng placed a slight emphasis on the sentence, that turned it into a leer, “you need only ask one of the servants. You are my father’s honoured guest. He would he deeply humiliated if you were to lack anything at all.”
“You and your father are too kind.” Tug returned the young man’s bow. There would have been a time, not too many years ago when Tug would have availed himself of the discreet invitation, but now he was thankful that the irrational and uncontrollable element of sexuality had faded from his existence. So much of his youthful time and energy had been spent in sexual pursuit. At the end he had very little to show for all the effort, apart from three useless sons and a couple of million a year in alimony payments. No, he was glad it w
as over. His existence now was calmer and saner. Youth was an over-rated period in a man’s life, filled with so much confusion and anxiety and unhappiness.
The two Chinese girls who helped him down the tiled steps into the steaming perfumed bath wore only brief white kilts and he could look upon their pale creamy skins and cherryblossom nipples with a connoisseur’s appreciation and only a brief sweet nostalgic stirring of the loins. “No,” he reiterated as he sank into the water, “I’m glad I’m not young any more.” Tug spurned the embroidered robes that the girls had laid out for him and chose instead one of his dark Savile Row suits with a Turnbull and Asser shirt and MCC tie that the valet had steamed.
“Damned fancy dress will make me feel like a clown. Old Heng knows it; that’s why he tried to get me into it.” Young Cheng was waiting for him at the appointed time. His eyes flicked over Tug’s suit but his expression never changed. “Didn’t fall for it, did I?” Tug thought smugly. “I wasn’t born yesterday, was I?”
They strolled up the covered pathway, pausing to admire the lotus flowers and water-lilies and the rhododendrons until they turned through an arched gateway festooned with drapes of blue wistaria and abruptly the main house was disclosed.
It was stunning, a creation of unblemished white marble and ceramic rooftiles in peaks and gables, modern and yet timelessly classical. Tug did not miss a stride, and sensed the young man’s disappointment beside him. He had expected Tug, like all other visitors, to gawk.
The patriarch, Ning Heng H’Sui, was very old, older than Tug by ten years or more. His skin was dried and folded like that of the unwrapped mummy of Rameses II in the Cairo Museum, and spotted with the foxing of age. On his left cheek grew a mole the size and colour of a ripe mulberry. It is a common Chinese superstition that the hairs growing from a facial mole bring good luck, and Heng H’Sui had never shaved his. A bunch of hair sprouted from the little purple cauliflower and hung down in a silver tassel below his chin above the simple tunic of cream-coloured raw silk he wore.
So much for the dragon embroidery he tried to rig me with, Tug thought, as he took his hand. It was dry and cool and the bones were light as a bird’s.
Heng was desiccated with age; only his eyes were bright and fierce. Tug imagined that the giant man-eating dragons of Komodo might have eyes like that.
“I trust you have rested after your journey, Sir Peter, and that you are comfortable in my poor house.” His voice was thin and dry as the sound of the wind rustling the autumn leaves and his English was excellent. They exchanged pleasantries while they measured and sized each other. It was their first meeting. All Tug’s negotiations up until this point had been with the elder sons. All the sons were here now, waiting behind their father, the three elder brothers and Cheng.
One at a time Heng H’Sui waved them forward with a birdlike flutter of his pale dry hand, and they greeted Tug courteously in strict order of seniority.
Then Cheng helped his father back to his cushioned seat overlooking the garden. It was not lost on Tug that the youngest, rather than the eldest, was so honoured. Though there was no exchange of glances between the other brothers and no change of expression, Tug felt the sibling rivalry and jealousy so strong in the sweet mountain air that he could almost taste it. All this was good intelligence he was gathering about the family.
Servants brought them pale jasmine tea in bowls so fine that Tug could see the outline of his own fingers through the china. He recognized the cream on white leaf design, so subtle and understated as almost to elude casual examination. The bowl was a masterpiece of a fifteenth-century potter of the Ching emperor of the Ming dynasty.
Tug drained the bowl and then, as he was about to set it down on the lacquered tray, he let it slip from his fingers. It struck the cedarwood floor and shattered into a hundred precious fragments. “I am so sorry, he apologised. How clumsy of me.”
“It is nothing.” Heng H’Sui inclined his head graciously, and gestured for a servant to sweep away the broken shards. The servant was trembling as he knelt to the task. He sensed his master’s wrath.
“I do hope it was not valuable?” Tug asked, testing him, trying to unsettle him, paying him back for the trick with the dragon robe. An angry man, one with hatred in his heart, has his judgement impaired. Tug studied Heng H’Sui for a reaction. They both knew that Tug was fully aware that the bowl was priceless.
“It was of no value, I assure you, Sir Peter. A mere trifle. Think no more of it,” the old man insisted, but Tug saw that he had got to him. There was a man of passion lurking behind that dried-out mask with the tasselled cheek piece. However, the old man was exhibiting class and style and control. A worthy adversary, Tug decided, for he had no illusion as to any fiduciary relationship between them merely on account of the mutually convenient and probably transient partnership of BOSS and the Lucky Dragon.
With the breaking of the bowl he had achieved a momentary advantage over the patriarch. He had thrown him off balance. The old man sipped the last of the pale tea from his own bowl which was identical to the one which Tug had broken, and then held out his hand with a quiet word of command.
One of the servants knelt and placed a square of silk in his wrinkled paw. Heng H’Sui wiped out the bowl carefully and then wrapped it in the silk and handed it to Tug. “A gift for you, Sir Peter. I hope that our friendship will not be as frail as this little bauble.”
Tug conceded that Heng had snatched back the advantage. Tug was left with no option but to accept the extravagant gift and the loss of face that the subtle rebuke entailed.
“I will treasure it for the generosity of the giver,” he said.
“My son,” Heng indicated him with a flick of his blue-yeincd hand, “tells me that you have expressed a desire to see my collection of ivory. Do you also collect ivory, Sir Peter?”
“I don’t, but I’m interested in all things African. I flatter myself that I know more than the average man about the African elephant. I know how much value your people place on ivory.”
“Indeed, Sir Peter, never dispute the efficacy of charms with a Chinese, especially those of ivory. Our entire existence is ruled by astrology and the courting of fortune.”
“The Lucky Dragon?” Tug suggested.
“The Lucky Dragon, certainly.” Heng’s parchment dry cheeks seemed about to tear as he smiled. “And the Dragon at my gate has fangs of pure ivory. I have been caught up in the spell of ivory all my life. I started my career as an ivory-carver in my father’s shop.”
“Yes, I know that the netsuke that bears your personal chop fetches prices equivalent to those of the great master carvers of antiquity,” Tug told him.
“Ah, those were made when my eye was sharp and my hand steady.” Heng shook his head modestly, but did not deny the value of his own creations.
“I would dearly love to see some examples of your work,” Tug suggested, and Heng gestured to his youngest son to help him rise.
“So you shall, Sir Peter. So you shall.”
The ivory museum was at a distance from the main house. They went slowly along the covered walkway through the gardens, holding back for Heng H’Sui’s short laboured pace.
He stopped to feed the khoi in one of the ornamental pools, and as the fish roiled the water in a feeding frenzy, the old man smiled at their antics. “Greed, Sir Peter; without greed where would you and I be?”
“Healthy greed is the fuel of the capitalist system,” Tug agreed.
“And the stupid unthinking greed of other men makes you and me rich, does it not?”
Tug inclined his head in agreement and they went on.
There were more paramilitary guards in silver helmets at the door of the museum. Tug knew without being told that their vigil was perpetual. Picked men.
Heng noticed his glance. “I trust them more than all these modern electronic devices.” Cheng relinquished his father’s arm for a moment to punch the entry code into the control box of the alarm system and the massive carved doors swung open aut
omatically. He ushered them through.
The museum was without windows. There was no natural light, and the artificial lighting had been skilfully arranged. The air-conditioning was set to the correct humidity to preserve and protect the ivory. The carved doors closed with a pneumatic hiss behind them.
Tug took three paces into the spacious antechamber and then halted abruptly. He stared at the display in the centre of the marble floor.
“You recognize them?” Heng H’Sui asked.
“Yes, of course.” Tug nodded. “I saw them once, long ago, at the Sultan of Zanzibar’s palace before the revolution. There has been speculation ever since as to what happened to them.”
“Yes. I acquired them after the revolution in 1964 when the Sultan was exiled,” Heng H’Sui agreed. “Very few people know that I own them.”
The walls of the room were painted blue, that particular milky blue of an African noon sky. The colour was chosen to show off the exhibits to best effect and the dimensions of the antechamber had obviously been designed for the same purpose, to complement the pair of ivory tusks.
Each tusk was over ten feet long, and its diameter at the lip was larger than a virgin’s waist. The legend inked on each tusk was in Arabic script written a hundred years ago by a clerk of the Sultan Barghash recording the weight when it arrived in Zanzibar. Tug deciphered the writing: the heaviest tusk had weighed 235 pounds, the other only a few pounds less.
“They are lighter now,” Heng H’Sui anticipated his question. “Between them they have dried out by twenty-two pounds, but still it takes four men to carry one of them. Think of the mighty animal who originally bore them.”
They were the most famous tusks in existence. As a student of African history, Tug knew the story of these extraordinary objects. They had been taken a hundred years ago on the southern slopes of Kilimanjaro, by a slave named Senoussi. The slave’s master was a villain named Shundi. He was one of the cruellest and most unscrupulous slavers and ivory-traders on the African cast coast, an area notorious for the depredations of the slave-masters. When he had first come upon it, Senoussi had in awe delayed killing the old bull. He had crouched over his flintlock musket and studied this extraordinary creature with respect for several hours before he had summoned the courage to creep forward and send a lead ball through its heart.