The Book of Lost Fragrances: A Novel of Suspense (7 page)

“You have no confidence.”

“I’m a realist.”

Robbie nodded toward the silent angel. “And that’s what she’s really mourning, Jac.”

Five

NANJING, CHINA
9:55 P.M.

The studio was empty when Xie returned. And he was thankful for the quiet. He arranged his tools in front of him and went back to work on the painting he’d started that afternoon. All of his consciousness was concentrated in his fingers. He quieted his mind and let go of the tormenting, doubting thoughts. Xie withdrew into the sweep of the movement. He lived on the edge of the line of ink that seeped into the paper. Soon he stopped thinking, stopped hearing the sounds coming in through the open window or down the hall and was aware only of the gentle whoosh the brush made as it danced across the white paper.

The ancient art of calligraphy, unlike so many other traditions, had survived into the modern age, mostly because Mao Tse-tung had recognized that in a country with hundreds of different dialects, calligraphy—despite its elitist history—was an effective communications device worth adapting. The regime’s appropriation of calligraphy as a communications tool took it out of its original high-art status and moved it into the realm of the ordinary.

Some artists imbued their work with rebellious overtones and opined with their brushes and inks. Xie didn’t. His paintings weren’t political expressions. He didn’t shout with his calligraphy. But he did whisper. And there were those outside of China who had heard.

Xie’s style broke away from the traditional with his use of seals. Typically, these carved blocks contained the characters of the artist’s name and were used with red paint or cinnabar ink. He used the seals to add narrative to his work. Over the years, he’d cut hundreds of blocks, incising each with different illustrative elements: from naturalistic leaves, flowers, clouds and moons, to human forms, faces, hands, lips, eyes, arms and legs.

The young calligrapher’s work was expressive, intricate and delicate. And with each painting, he risked his life. Because hidden somewhere in every seal’s design was one tiny jagged line: a thunderbolt. His second signature.

A message to anyone who knew what to look for that he had not been killed; that he was still alive.

Despite Xie’s efforts, in the midst of his meditative state, images of the burning monk broke his concentration. It was rare for him to lose control like this. Struggling to still the noise of his mind, Xie suppressed his awareness, swirled it into the dense black ink. Usually when he painted, he was free. Not today. Today the burden of the tragic violence was too heavy.

With so many artists sharing the studio, someone was always coming in or going out, so when the door opened and he heard two sets of footsteps, Xie didn’t glance up. Not yet. Holding on to the last flourish of a curve, he stepped away only when he heard his name spoken and looked up with a feeling of dread. He’d recognized Lui Chung’s voice. While he’d expected this meeting would take place sometime in the next week, he hadn’t anticipated it would transpire tonight.

“Over a very good dinner, Professor Wu here”—Lui Chung nodded at his companion—“has been telling me wonderful things about your recent work.” He came close, leaned over Xie’s shoulder and looked down at the unfinished painting. “And I can see why.”

Chung was always eating, chewing and swallowing, making little spitting noises. As usual, the sound of him masticating the candy in his mouth nauseated Xie.

Surprise visits from the baby-faced and pudgy Beijing official were never welcome, but this one was especially unsettling coming on the heels of the illegal footage Xie had just looked at on the internet. “Thank you,” Xie murmured in a reserved, low voice, keeping his eyes down, being respectful, as he had been taught so long ago.

“Would you like one?” Chung asked as he held out the bag of confections wrapped in edible paper. “It’s your favorite. Rice candy.”

Xie took the awful sweet and put it on the taboret behind him. “I’ll save it for later. I don’t like to eat while I’m working.”

When he was a child at the orphanage outside of Beijing, Xie had many teachers. They taught him math, history, geography, language, natural and social sciences, drawing and violin. But Lui Chung was a special kind of teacher. Starting when Xie was six years old, and continuing for six years, every day for two hours, Chung educated the boy away from the other students in what was called “moral training
,
” which included ethics but stressed love of the motherland, the party, and the people. These sessions always began with Chung playing music for ten minutes and ended with the programmer praising Xie and offering him a rice candy as a reward for doing so well.

At that moment, reaching his hand into the bag, Xie would always feel a flush of fear. Somehow he imagined he was going to lose his fingers; that they were going to break off and Chung would take the bag away before Xie could get them out.

Om mani padme hum.

As wise a child as he was, when the sessions started, Xie didn’t know the word for brainwashing. But he understood that Chung was trying to change how he thought, and the sessions scared him. So during the two-hour episodes, Xie learned how to split his consciousness. While he remained aware of the present—enough so that he could hear Chung spouting his propaganda and respond when necessary—he was able to use his mantra as a shield. As he repeated the phrase, a humming started deep inside him that emanated outward, pushing all the intrusions—noises, words, worries—away and keeping his inner core inviolate.

Om mani padme hum.

And in the process, he learned how to hold two separate consciousnesses at the same time.

“Will you have one?” Now Chung offered the bag of candies to Professor Wu.

“Thank you, yes,” Xie’s mentor said as he reached for a sweet. At eighty, Wu, the head of the calligraphy department, was as sprightly and vital as a man thirty years younger. His work, he professed, was what kept him healthy and satisfied. He often lectured his students about the spiritual and psychological benefits of calligraphy—of any art—about how it connects you to history and the continuum of the universe, how it bypasses politics even when it is political, and how it speaks directly to the best in man.

“Most delicious,” Wu said, popping the delicacy in his mouth.

Chung dipped in and took another for himself.

With both men eating, it wasn’t long before a sickly smell permeated the work area. Xie’s impulse to gag was strong, but he controlled it.

“We’re honored to have you visit the studio,” Wu said respectfully to Chung.

Xie had been reluctant to tell Professor Wu about his past. Better to be silent than take risks. Xie had a karmic responsibility to fulfill. To draw attention to himself for any reason other than his prowess with the brush and ink could ruin his chances of accomplishing his goal. But Wu was perceptive. He was wise. He’d known the boy was hiding a terrible secret that weighed on him.

“Professor Wu also tells me that your work won the first prize in the graduate competition,” Chung said, talking as he chewed. “Congratulations.”

Xie nodded and again averted his gaze, as if humbled by the compliment. “Thank you.”

“Do you still find your studies here at the art institute satisfying?”

Always the same questions. Always the same answers.

“Yes, I’m very satisfied here.”

“Nature is a good subject to concentrate on,” Chung said.

“I’m glad you are pleased.” Xie had chosen his specialty precisely for its neutrality. No one ever was accused of subversive thinking by painting a mountain, a stream, or clouds. And the poetry that graced his work was ages old.

While artists were still encouraged to glorify the state, in the last decade socially critical artists had emerged and even flourished. The most extreme, who created sexually explicit art or overtly challenged government decisions, lived off the radar, but the more moderate were now accepted as part of China’s cultural establishment and even held positions in universities. Despite the changes, Xie could ill afford suspicion, and he avoided politically charged messages.

Or so it appeared.

“And Professor Wu has also told me you are one of only four graduate students from this university whose paintings have been chosen to go on an exhibition tour in Europe. This is quite an honor. We are all very proud of you.”

Xie intoned yet another thank-you.

Chung sighed. “That’s all? Thank you?”

Xie knew his silence frustrated his old Beijing tutor, but it was hard to say the wrong thing if you said nothing at all. Or next to nothing. From the time he had arrived at the orphanage, he’d spoken little.

When Xie had first smelled the flames, he wondered why the monks had lit the sacrificial fires before dawn. But as much as he wanted to investigate, he didn’t get up. The six-year-old, who then was called Dorjee, had been living in the Tsechen Damchos Ling monastery for a few months, learning the practice of
dzogchen
. At the heart of the ancient and direct stream of wisdom was discipline. Dorjee was engaged in a meditation. Nothing was supposed to disturb that.

But he couldn’t block out the screams. Or the sounds of running feet.

“Dorjee, come with me.” Suddenly Ribur Rinpoche was at the door. “Quickly. The monastery is on fire.”

The hallway was thick with smoke that smelled of burning rubber. That was what their fuel smelled like. The blaze was consuming the yak chips. How would they stay warm though winter?

Outside, the Rinpoche settled Dorjee under a snow-capped tree and warned his young student to stay clear of the burning buildings. “You could get hurt. It’s dangerous. You understand, don’t you?”

Dorjee nodded.

“If you’re afraid, use your mantra and engage in mindfulness.”

It was the last thing the Rinpoche said to him before he ran back to join his fellow monks trying to save the sanctuary, the centuries-old
thanka
paintings, the holy relics and the rare scriptures.

Om mani padme hum.

Dorjee repeated the mantra again and again, but it wasn’t working. The flames had eaten through the temple’s roof and were reaching toward the sacred Mount Kailash. What was happening inside the monastery? Was the Rinpoche all right? Why hadn’t he come outside again?

Then a hand clamped roughly over Dorjee’s mouth. Fingers grabbed him around the waist. He tried to scream, but his lips moved against flesh. He tried to kick and get loose. The man’s grip was too tight.

“We’re saving you from the fire, you fool. Stop trying to fight us.”

Chung and others believed that the fire, the immolation of his teachers, and the boy’s ensuing “rescue”—which was how they all referred to the kidnapping—had traumatized him and made him almost a mute.

Xie, as they had renamed him when they hid him in the Beijing orphanage, knew better. But it was convenient to allow them to think so.

Chung had tried to encourage the boy to converse, telling him he’d never be able to find a wife or have children if he didn’t speak. The threat didn’t scare Xie; the Rinpoche in Tibet had explained to him that he wasn’t fated to have a traditional life.

Now Chung’s voice brought Xie back to the present. “Professor Wu has made a formal request that you be allowed to travel along with your fellow artists to Europe on the exhibition tour. That’s why I’m here. To talk to you about that. Is it something you want to do?”

Xie didn’t blink, didn’t move a muscle in his face, and didn’t look up from the drawing. He dipped his brush in the ink and then dragged it in a leisurely movement that created half a character. The spirit of the letter was like a bird flying high above the mountain. Xie knew that Chung was waiting for an answer. He couldn’t hesitate too long. When Chung became impatient, he could get angry, and Xie didn’t want to invite his rage.

“If my government wants me to go, I’d be pleased.”

Chung smiled. A ten-word sentence from Xie was like a lengthy ballad from anyone else. As if in celebration, he plucked a third rice candy from the red cellophane bag and popped it in his mouth. He offered another to Professor Wu and to Xie, in turn, who accepted it with another soft thank-you. And set it aside on the taboret.

In the orphanage, there were two types of children. One accepted Chung’s candy and ate it on the spot, hungrily, desperately, not savoring it as much as absorbing it, trying to gain some comfort from the treat, from its specialness, from the break in the routine and the delight in the moment. The other group took their candy and carefully, as if it were made of glass, put it in the pockets of their smocks and saved it for later.

Some were clever, hoarding the candies and trading them for favors. Others just saved them for when they were alone, and used the candy almost like a memory tool to take them back to a time before the orphanage, when they had families and knew love.

Xie did none of these. When another of the children was especially sad, he would give him a piece from his cache. He got pleasure from knowing that for a few minutes, the little boy was a bit happier.

All he asked of the other children was that they promise not to tell the matron what he’d done. He was worried Chung would hear about his acts of kindness and suspect that the brainwashing wasn’t working.

Wu believed if calligraphy was going to thrive as a modern art form, its young masters had to open themselves to new techniques and interpretations. Under his tutelage, students were trained not only in poetry, music and the brush and ink arts, but also in Western materials, colors and concepts. He encouraged them to be creative—to play with the shapes and structures of the characters they used. He encouraged them to be brave and break the rules.

But the worst rule he broke was the yearly conversation he had with Xie.

Before the professor accepted students into his program, he took them to a waterfall in an ancient park and asked them to create a spontaneous drawing expressing the mood of the sacred spot.