The Chinese Alchemist (20 page)

When I got back to my hotel room, I dug Liu David’s card out and called his cell again. I’d been reluctant to call him directly, but there was nothing for it. Not entirely unexpectedly, he didn’t answer, but his message was in both Chinese and English. “Nice to see you today,” I said after the beep in as neutral a tone as I could manage. “I would like you to call me back, please. Here is my mobile number. It works intermittently here, but if at first you don’t succeed, keep trying, and please feel free to leave a message. I will pick up my messages regularly. I think you owe me one. There are perhaps other things we could discuss at the same time—for example, the murder I witnessed in the alley close to where you were today. I believe Song Liang was the man who tried to buy the silver box in New York, and stole it in our presence in Beijing. Now you owe me again. Here is how you can repay me. I would like to know the name of the army officer who was present when the silver box was stolen. I am tired of people telling me I don’t want or need to know. I look forward to your call.” I left my mobile number, not telling him where I was staying in case I’d completely misjudged the situation, and hung up. He probably knew where I was staying anyway. Everybody else seemed to know.

I figured that should do it. If it didn’t, I’d tell him where he could find a stash of looted T’ang tomb figures. Then, still protected by the bubble I’d created that insulated me from the realities of this world, like murders for example, I headed out one more time. I moved west along Dong Dajie and soon found myself once again underground at the main square, at which point I headed up the stairs toward the Drum Tower, intending to visit the market behind it again.

I was close to the Drum Tower when
I
was approached by a beggar on crutches. There are unfortunately a lot of beggars in China. The burgeoning economy has created an enormous gap between rich and poor, between city- and country-dwellers, that is quite evident for anyone to see. This man, however, was particularly aggressive, frightening really, and not the kind of person I would stop to help under any circumstances. He kept pace with me, even though I tried to wave him away. I was walking faster and faster trying to get away from him, but I couldn’t do it. I reversed my direction heading back to the steps that led down to the underground passage at the Bell Tower, thinking the stairs would certainly stop a man on crutches. They didn’t. He kept right beside me, matching me step by step, his entreaties getting louder and louder. Call me crazy, but I didn’t think he needed the crutches. I was getting really anxious, and didn’t know how I would get rid of him. Then I saw the door to a rather fancy department store on the tunnel level and ducked through it. I knew the two doormen were not going to let the man, dirty and disheveled as he was, into this fancy establishment.

I felt safe for a few minutes, surrounded by familiar cosmetic counters and bright lights, and decided I had overreacted. It was a zealous and possibly desperate beggar, that’s all, one who used crutches as a ploy for sympathy and therefore cash. I was annoyed at myself for being frightened by someone who clearly needed some money, but in truth there had been something about him. When I was certain the man was gone, I went out another door, and continued my way west and then north into the market area behind the Drum Tower.

I’d been so intent on following Burton when I’d last been in this area that I hadn’t really savored it at all. It was a vibrant and exciting place. People thronged the streets, their children running and jumping along with them, the merchants outside the shops trying to lure customers in. Soon I was back in the Muslim Quarter. I’d learned enough about the Chang’an of T’ang times to know that it had been a very cosmopolitan city, a magnet for traders from far and wide. The people of the Muslim Quarter were said to be descended from Arab soldiers who’d arrived in the eighth century, right about when Illustrious August was emperor.

I had left the puppets I’d purchased for Jennifer in Beijing, but thought I should get something for Rob— although I had no idea what—if I was going to arrive in Taiwan bearing gifts for his daughter. I found some lovely inkwells, and had a beautiful jade stamp carved with his initials in Chinese while I waited. I doubted he’d be stamping his correspondence with it, but it’s the thought that counts, and it would look nice somewhere in his place. If we ever got around to moving in together, it would be something I’d permit him to keep, too, unlike, say, his red-and-green plaid recliner with the duct tape on the left arm, no matter how hard he tried to persuade me the nasty thing was an antique.

I made my way to the lane that featured antiques, and started going from shop to shop, trying to make myself understood. Everybody shook their heads no. Most of what they called antique wouldn’t have qualified as such in my shop, so I held little hope for success, particularly when one dealer who spoke a little English told me someone else had been looking for the same box. I assumed that person was Burton.

I kept an eye out for the man in the mosque, not really hopeful of success. Still, I looked, and I asked, and eventually a woman directed me to a shop down one of the little lanes. My heart soared, my pace quickened. I was getting closer, I just knew it. Burton had just had an easier time of it because he spoke the language. I, however, had persistence on my side.

It was a particularly large stall, one that you actually entered as opposed to stood in front of, and to my surprise, I found some real antiques once again. There was no one there, however, to assist me. That seemed a little strange to me, as an antique dealer. I wouldn’t have left my stall unattended. That would be way too much temptation for locals and tourists alike.

I called out, but there was no answer. I then noticed there was a teapot, and I could smell the tea, so perhaps the proprietor had made a quick dash to the communal toilet down the street. I waited a few more minutes, standing in the doorway. It was then I saw the beggar with the crutches again, the man who’d aggressively followed me down the stairs. I recognized him despite the fact that he’d apparently made a miraculous recovery, no longer requiring the crutches.

He was standing a few yards from the shop I was in. I couldn’t tell whether he’d seen me or not, but I knew I didn’t want to risk another confrontation with him. I ducked back inside and moved as far into one corner as I could so that if he happened to look in, he wouldn’t see me. There was a pile of carpets on offer, and I decided if I moved behind it and stayed down low, he would pass right by.

It was in the corner near the carpets that I made a horrible discovery: a hand, and a hand only. I reeled back, then ran out of the shop, getting several yards along the lane before my rational self regained a measure of control. I stopped a man on the street, and with hand gestures and sounds that were possibly tinged with hysteria, I convinced him to follow me.

Police were called. They found the rest of the body behind a curtain. Despite the body’s bloodless aspect, I recognized him as the man in the mosque. In addition to having both of his hands severed, his throat had been cut.

Soon I was back at the police station. “Violent events appear to follow you, madam,” said the interviewing officer, the same one, in fact, I’d spoken to before. His name I believe was Fang, Officer Fang.

“Burton Haldimand killed himself by accident,” I said. “You are the ones who decided that. This was a terrible crime. I’m calling Dr. Xie.”

At the sound of that name, the man blanched. Apparently Dr. Xie did not even have to be there for his power and influence to be felt. I was very happy to have him on my team.

“That will not be necessary,” Fang said. “What were you doing in the shop?”

“Shopping, of course. What else? I was looking for souvenirs, and also some things to sell in my own antique shop in Toronto.” I wished I hadn’t said that. It would have been better to let him think I knew nothing about antiques. On the other hand, maybe he knew all about me anyway, and it was just as well I’d been forthcoming on that subject. “I called out, but there was no answer. I didn’t think he’d leave the shop unattended for long, so I waited for him. I was looking at the carpets when I saw the, you know, the hand. Who was he?”

Fang grimaced. “Just a shopkeeper.”

I wanted to chastise him for saying just, being just a shopkeeper myself, but I resisted the temptation. I also declined to ask him if this is what regularly happened to shopkeepers in his town. It didn’t seem politic, and I just wanted to get out of there.

“You don’t know this man?” he went on.

“No. How could I?”

“I’m asking the questions,” he said rather tartly, but then perhaps he recalled my relationship with Dr. Xie. “I apologize for this inconvenience. Please be assured that this does not happen here often. We expect to arrest the killer or killers very soon.”

“I don’t know what you mean by not happening often. Didn’t I read in
China Daily
that someone else was murdered here a couple of days ago?”

Fang gave me a look that would have frozen the Yellow River solid. “That crime, too, is unusual, and it also will be resolved shortly.” I hoped he was right.

There was some good news. Fang did not take my passport this time, and he had a policeman drive me back to my hotel. The bad news was that Liu David had not returned my call. There was, however, another voice mail awaiting my return. It was a message from a man who sounded as if he had a sock in his mouth and an accent I now recognized as Chinese saying he’d like to book an appointment to measure me for the suit I needed for the funeral. I had no doubts that it was my funeral he had in mind.

Nine

Neither of us said anything about that unnatural incident ever again, nor did I mention it to anyone else, tempting though the prospect of sharing such juicy gossip might be. The next time I saw Lingfei, she looked as she always had. She had covered her mutilated locks with an elaborate wig so no one would be the wiser. Our time together went on as before, she dictating formulas to me, I, in my best hand, recording them. I could not fail to notice, though, that after the failure of her petition, the ingredients for which she sent me were not always the medicinal herbs she’d been working with before, but rather others, more costly, like cinnabar and powdered oyster shells, mica, and pearls. I also recorded detailed processes for formulating something, I knew not what. From time to time our work together was interrupted when the emperor moved his court to the hot springs east of Chang’an where he was spending more and more of his time. While I quite enjoyed the time spent there, Lingfei was impatient to return to her work.

Finally I could contain my curiosity no longer. “What is this you are working on?” I asked in some exasperation, having had to redo, with only the most minor of changes, a formula that I had already written three or four times for her.

She looked at me for some time without speaking. I was afraid I had offended her, and was about to apologize profusely, when she signaled me to be quiet. “Can I trust you, Wu Yuan?” she asked very quietly.

“Why wouldn’t you?” I asked rather rudely. “I have been coming here for more than a year now without fail. I believe my work has been satisfactory, has it not?”

“Indeed it has,” she replied. “But it is not the quality of your work or your punctuality that I am concerned about. It is your ability to hold a confidence. I know only too well the gossip that goes on in the imperial harem, amongst the women, but also amongst the eunuchs, too. I understand firsthand the deceit, the bickering, the plotting and subterfuge that grip the harem. I defy you to tell me that is not so.”

“I cannot,” I said. “I can only promise you that I will not betray your confidence.” I realized even as I .said it, that it was true. Not only that, but I realized in an instant that I loved Lingfei in some way I did not understand. “I… I… would do anything for you.”

That was patently untrue, of course, as I had quite definitely demonstrated when she’d asked me to cut her fingers off. Still, it was unfair of her to ask, as she would have to have known, given the absence of harem gossip, that I had told no one of either her petition or her reaction to its rejection. It is possible these thoughts showed in my face. “Not quite anything,” she said, but at least there was a hint of a smile there. “Come with me.”

She took me to a pavilion across the garden from her palace apartment. The garden was treeless, of course, so as not to provide a means to scale the wall and make good her escape to the arms of the man in the Gold Bird Guard. Her living quarters were a prison, beautiful to be sure, but a prison nonetheless, I now began to realize. Until that moment, I believe I had misjudged the grip of the golden threads that bound all of us to the palace and to the Son of Heaven.

The pavilion was hot, as a fire burned, over which a cauldron rested. The smell offended my delicate nostrils. There were three tables lined with vessels of all shapes and sizes, and tools as well. “This is my life’s work,” she said to me.

“But what is it that you are doing here?” I asked. The unpleasant thought that I was in the presence of a witch crossed my mind. I brushed it aside. This was the lovely Lingfei, quite possibly
—
no, almost certainly
—
my sister.

“I seek the elixir of immortality,” she said. “I believe I am very close to perfecting it. I have solved the puzzle of the mysterious yellow, the foundation of the elixir, and am now proceeding to formulate the elixir itself. I have tried the ingredients I know to be necessary in different combinations, and I believe the secret is within my grasp.”

Everything became clear to me, the endless hours writing and rewriting formulations with only the most minute changes, the reworking of the same ingredients over and over, the necessity for the precious ingredients. Still, I was astonished, and felt compelled to remind her that the emperor was inclined to Confucian thought, and might find some of the Taoist arts not to his liking. She pointed out that the Son of Heaven knew the words of Buddha and the Tao as well as that of Confucius, and that while he might favor one, he was not averse to the others.