Ghosts of Chinatown (2 page)

Even though it’s only 8:00 p.m., everything is deserted. The shops and restaurants are abandoned and the sound of wind blowing creates a haunting, sinister mood... a foreboding feeling that something isn’t right. Garish neon lights up some windows and down the block, new structures mingle with old buildings that have been abandoned or have only minimal maintenance.
 

And yet, there is something there that transcends the obvious. A feeling of importance, of history, of pain, of eternity... Chinatown is reflected on Todd’s face as he travels slowly down this deserted Asian street.
 

Todd stops at the entrance of an old four-story brick building sandwiched between two other poorly maintained buildings. The shabby edifice appears deserted with all the windows boarded up. Over a few of the windows hangs a large weathered sign reading
The Liang Building.

He skeptically scans down the building to a nondescript sign that hangs on a nail banged in directly over the doorway:
Shanghai Gallery.
Talk about pretentious. Wouldn’t want anyone to know this was my building and to call this dump a gallery? You must be kidding.

As if reading his mind, a grizzled old panhandler standing at the building entrance answers, “It works.”

“What works?” Todd’s eyes open wide.

“It is what it is,” says the old man, who shivers as he holds out his hand. “Tough times. Chinatown ain’t what it used to be. Nobody’s helping nobody.”

Todd reaches into his pocket and pulls out a twenty and hands it to the astonished old man. “I’m nobody, I guess. Describes me perfectly.”

“Thanks, buddy. There should be more guys like you.”

Todd chuckles mirthlessly. “Now that’s a death wish if I ever heard one. You hang here much?”

The panhandler scans Todd with trepidation. “No way. They got ghosts here.”

“You paranoid, delusional or both?”

“Stone-cold sane and sober.”

Todd peruses the old man’s empty face. “So what? They got ghosts everywhere.”

The panhandler shudders. “No, no, no. Not these kinds. Them Chinese ones? They don’t get dead. Nope. Not ever.”

Todd scans down the street devoid of any living thing. “You’re wrong, old man. The dead are dead. It’s the living you gotta worry about.”

“You ever tasted fear, Todd?”

“How’d you know my name?” Todd quickly swivels to the panhandler but he’s vanished. Not this… not now…

Todd uneasily double-checks the nameplate over the doorframe and mutters, “Yeah, this is the right place. I hope this guy’s not an asshole because God, I need this place.”

Did God actually hear his insincere muttering? Maybe? The door slowly creaks agape, seemingly by itself. Not a good sign, or is it?

It is what it is. Shanghai Gallery in the middle of Vancouver. Hopefully the new home of Todd Mathers, pianist. Todd enters.

Chapter 3
 

Never judge a book by its cover and always expected the unexpected. These clichés are Todd’s first thoughts as he steps through the doorway. Unlike the shabby, dingy exterior, this is a huge, chic, contemporary spacious room with twelve-foot ceilings, more than worthy to call itself a “gallery” as even more remarkable than the room itself is what it contains. At the door’s entrance are two full-size terra-cotta soldiers standing as if they were still protecting Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, on his funerary journey to the heavens in the third century BC. On every wall are classical Chinese watercolor paintings of tigers, of towering mountains, of bamboo, each one exhibiting the soft, sensitive hand of a master brushwork artist.

In complete contrast, an elongated black leather Scandinavian sofa sits in front of a humongous flat-screen television, which hangs on the far wall. On the television monitor, brilliant images of Chinese culture and history dissolve in and out. However, what really strikes Todd is the erhu, the Chinese violin, standing by itself a foot off the ground, seemingly suspended in the air, just like the erhu in the lobby of Beijing’s
Xing-xing Xiyuan
, “Double Stars Theater.”

In front of a Chinese ink painting of horses by famed twentieth-century Chinese painter
Xu Beihong
is a large hand-crafted mahogany desk, where fifty-year-old Liang sits. Looking every bit like a perfect gentleman, the slightly greying Liang appears as fit and lean as an athlete half his age. Wearing a traditional silk Chinese jacket with the high collar and cloth buttons, he looks formidable, stern and appears the quintessential embodiment of the “inscrutable Chinese.”

Todd, standing at the door and awed by Liang, meekly offers, “Mr. Liang?”

“You’re asking me or you’re telling me?” There’s a quiet confidence and edge in Liang’s voice that provokes fear. “I think I know who I am.”

Todd is now quaking inside. “I… I’m Todd Mathers. I’ve come to ask about the suite, the one with the piano.”
 

With a flick of his wrist, Liang motions for Todd to enter.
 

Todd marvels at the amazing artifacts and fixtures as he makes his way to the desk. “You’d never know what’s inside when you look at the front of the building.”

“I know what resides within. That’s all that’s important.” Liang scrutinizes the withering Todd and smiles an infinitesimal smile. “Camouflage. If you hadn’t noticed, this is a high crime neighborhood so I don’t want to draw any attention to myself or anything about me.”

Liang hands Todd a rental application form.
 

“You’re a smart man, Mr. Liang.”
 

“Stating the obvious does not impress me.”

“Right.” Todd, on edge, takes off his backpack and begins filling out the form. He shifts his attention to see Liang motioning to the erhu and its bow. On its own, the Chinese violin lifts itself and nestles between Liang’s legs. The bow settles itself in proper position in Liang’s hand and Liang begins to play. Totally Zen.

It is the same melancholy tune as the erhu played in the opening. Todd analyzes Liang with apprehension but continues writing. Liang’s music fills the room as Todd scribbles harder and harder, finally finishing. “Done.”

Todd puts the pen down and Liang stops playing. “Mr. Liang, you’ve got soul. Wish I could play like that.”

“No you don’t.”

“No way, man. I’d love to play like that.”

Liang’s eyes bored into Todd. “No way, man? Yes, way. Because the only way you can play like this is if you know indescribable anguish, of pain that is always present without any hope of relief.”
 

Todd fumbles for words but can’t really respond intelligently. “Yeah, you’re right.”

The inane comment steels Liang’s eyes as he first glares at Todd then looks down to scrutinize the document.
 

Anxious moments for Todd pass before Liang intones quietly but resolutely. “No references. Rent every first of the month requires regular income and that means steady employment. No can do.”

“I’ve taught music all over the world. Paris. London. New York. Singapore.”
 

“There are cheap flights everywhere.” Liang finally looks at Todd. “And travelling so much means you are unstable.”

Todd starts reaching. “Somebody always wants piano lessons. Every Chinese parent makes their kid take them. It’s a rite of passage.”

“Piano lessons are for those middle- and upper-class families who want to show off how talented their kids are or how bourgeois they are. Those people do not live in Chinatown.”

“I was a scholarship student in China. I’m the only white guy they ever did that for.”

“Obviously a failed experiment.” Liang stands up—this meeting is over. “You were a dropout in China.” He hands the application back to Todd but Todd lets Liang’s hand hang in the air.

“There were... circumstances.”
Yeah, I had to blitz right away or I’d still be stuck in a Chinese jail. No one would ever find me, no one would ever care, no one would ever believe me.

“There are always circumstances.”

Todd pushes the application back to Liang. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a scribbled-on sheet of paper. “Newly renovated suite with lovingly restored grand piano. Prefer pianist with Chinese sensibilities.”

Todd looks up. “That’s me. I’m just white on the outside. Inside I’m a thousand percent Chinese.”

“References and ability to pay trump any concern about racial origin.”

Todd feels the obvious imbalance of power. He’s got nothing that Liang wants or needs. Todd has invaded Liang’s airspace and Liang couldn’t give a whit about the unkempt young man.

There’s only one thing left to try. Beg.

Todd’s whole being pleads. “This ad was written just for me. I know it was. Please. Let me see the place. Let me at least play something. I’ll prove to you that I’m the one for your place.”

The air shifts. Liang examines Todd, rapidly drumming his fingers on the desk, then slows his fingers to a stop. “No promises.”

Todd sighs. “No promises.”

Liang stands aright and motions for Todd to follow.

Chapter 4

Todd and Liang travel in silence up the several flights of stairs. This hallway, like the Shanghai Gallery, is lovingly restored but there’s a difference. The Shanghai Gallery is a contemporary fusion of East and West but this stairway is a tribute to the workmen who built the Liang Building almost a century ago. Unlike many older buildings where the wood floors creak when you step on them, there is not a sound, not even a tiny squeak from the hardwood, as the two ascend. Todd notices the restored filigree antique moldings, floral wallpaper hanging carefully above finished oak paneling and the hand-carved railing lining the much-traveled wooden stairway. Whoever did this had the compulsive mind for detail of Michelangelo.

That mind was Liang’s. He’d built his chops the old-fashioned way, starting at the ground up in the Xing-xing. He pushed broom, he washed costumes, he cleaned toilets, gradually being given more duties and responsibilities until there was hardly anything he didn’t know about building or designing theater sets.

“This doesn’t look very Chinese.”

“Thank you, Dr. Einstein.” Liang trudges a few steps then speaks. “A man of the world must know the world. In order to know the world, one must live the world.”

Pretentious old fart. Talented but still pretentious. Todd offers, “Guess you’ve done a lot of living then, Mr. Liang?”

“Mr. Liang does not exist. I am Liang.”

Todd groans inwardly. Another one-name wonder. Sting. Madonna. “Right.”

The whole building is completely silent, as if nothing lives here at all. Reaching the top fourth floor, they start walking down the hallway, passing silent apartments that have no light seeping through door spaces. Suddenly, at the end of the hall, a door opens and Cam Gibson, an easygoing, clean-cut guy in his late twenties, appears. Wearing a T-shirt that reads “Super and Natural” and requisite faded torn jeans, he ambles toward them. He tilts his Ray-Bans up. “Yo, Liang, what’s happenin’, man?”

Liang rolls his eyes. “Meet Cam Gibson, another white man trying to be something he’s not.”

“Liang, man, blackness is in my soul.”

“My point exactly. Cam is a wannabe writer of ghost stories.” Liang gestures toward Todd. “Todd Mathers, wannabe renter of my suite.”

“Another Piano Man? Oh, for Christ’s sake, Liang, give it to him. Don’t you like ever get tired of listening to lousy keyboard players? How many you seen now? Fifteen? Twenty?”

Liang glares at Cam. “I am waiting for the right person.”

Cam chuckles. “No wonder you’re not married. No such thing as the ‘right’ person.”

Unseen by Todd, Liang’s body language tells Cam to pay special attention to the pianist. Cam blinks in acknowledgment with a slight nod of his head. “But who knows? Maybe with a little hoodoo voodoo, Piano Man here might be Mr. Right. And Liang, I am no wannabe. I have fifteen published books.”

Liang studies Todd and grudgingly admits, “Cam is successful but this superstitious fool stays because he’s afraid his luck will change if he moves.”

“Who you calling a fool? Luck is real.”

“Please. Save it for the cockroaches who buy your books.”
 

Cam rolls his arms like the paddlewheel of a steamboat. “As long as the rent money keeps rolling in, why do you care?”

“I care because I take the issue of the paranormal very seriously.”

“And I take the issue of my book publishing royalty checks very seriously. Right, Liang?”

Liang ignores Cam, takes out a key and tries the door. The key doesn’t work. Liang tries forcing the key but to no avail. “Sorry, I must get another key from my workroom.”

Cam waves his finger at Liang in mock accusation. “Sorry. Always sorry. You are one sorry dude, Liang.”

Liang glares at Cam. Cam grins, puts his thumbs in his ears, waves his fingers and sticks his tongue out at Liang. Todd bites his tongue, wondering what the hell is going on.

Pianist and writer watch Liang stride down the hall and disappear down the flight of stairs.

***

Liang’s workroom is a messy combination of Chinese herbalist, Dollar Store junk and mad scientist hangout. Dried salamanders and deer antlers mingle with wrenches and high-tech gadgetry, transmitters, receivers, fake blood, piano parts and much, much more. Most notable are the walls full of pictures and posters of Jasmine as an actress in costume in a variety of genres. In one, she wears the flowing robes of classical Chinese opera with her face covered with the exaggerated, impressionistic garishness; in another, she is aged and dresses as Tennessee Williams’ alcoholic southern belle, Blanche DuBois from
A Streetcar Named Desire
; another photo finds her transformed as the witchlike Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare; yet another shows her as a stylish fashionista in contemporary Beijing.
 

The best picture, though, sits on a workbench and is a black-and-white 8 X 10 photo of Jasmine in her natural beauty, flowing ebony hair and unblemished, milky skin with a perfectly shaped figure. It is contrasted by the real Jasmine, whose face is bleeding and gashed, standing and staring at the photo of what she once was.