The Feng Shui Detective's Casebook (4 page)

The fish said: ‘I am looking for the sea.’

The scholar said: ‘But you are IN the sea.’

The fish looked around. He said: ‘How can that be? I cannot see it.’

The scholar said: ‘You cannot see it because it is every
thing you can see.’

At that moment the scholar found enlightenment.

Blade of Grass, never forget the words of Confucius:

‘Fish forget they live in water and people forget that
they live in the eye of heaven.

‘The world is heaven and heaven is the world. This is
the beginning of understanding.’

From ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’
by CF Wong, part 21.

He lowered his pen, blew on the page to dry it, and carefully shut the book.

Then, slowly as a golden rain-tree falls over in a paper-mulberry forest, he leaned way back in his creaking red leatherette chair, cupped his hands behind his head and grinned.

CF Wong was a happy man. He felt like physically expressing it some way. But how? Singing was something he hadn’t done for years. Dancing was something he hadn’t done for even longer—since his previous life or perhaps one or two before that, he reckoned. Maybe he should celebrate by having a lion’s head for lunch. But those devils at Tong Kee Fish Porridge were now charging $4.95 a dish: evil robbers from the fifth layer of hell!

Yet even as the
feng shui
master pondered the best way to celebrate, he was aware of a growing realisation that he probably wouldn’t do anything at all. He had never been a demonstrative man. He had seen people expressing their feelings by jumping around and yelling, but had no idea how to do the same.

No matter. He was happy enough to just sink into his chair and let a smile play on his lips.

He would take it easy today. Perhaps do a little extra writing in his book of educational Chinese classics. And he might make a token celebratory action. He would order a portion of pan-fried wor tip from the Shanghainese coffee shop around the corner. Yes, that would be perfect.

The sudden burst of joy could be credited to a plan that had come to Wong as he had dragged his eternally suffering limbs into the office at 7:30 that morning.

Like all members of humanity, he had his crosses to bear. But this particular week, two particularly heavy weights were pressing down on him.

The first was a troublesome client. He had many of these, but this one was especially noxious. His assignment for the day was to examine the residential premises of Mr Tik Sincheung, the junior non-executive director on the board of East Trade Industries.

Mr Tik was a moderately successful broker with a medium-sized penthouse apartment in the Fort Canning area. Wong had been to the flat several times and each time almost nothing needed to be done. The businessman was highly conservative, and rarely altered anything. It was not impossible that he may have bought a new painting or a new bed. But even that was unlikely. The only changes between Wong’s previous visits were alterations in the number of fish he kept and the precise spot in which he kept them. Mr Tik last time had had eight rare giant carp in a pond with a fountain on his terrace and twelve rare angelfish in a water feature in the southwest corner of his living room.

There was only one problem: the smell. The apartment stank of fish. Mr Tik stank of fish. Any unfortunate
feng shui
reader who had to spend more than an hour in the flat stank of fish. After Wong’s previous visit, he had carried the odour around with him for three days. Even the local durian seller had complained, and had banned him from the store.

Wong, a life-long durian addict, had mentally sworn never to do Mr Tik’s flat again.

The second cross was also supplied by the man who paid his retainer, property developer Mr Pun Chi-kin, chairman of East Trade Industries.

Pun had forcibly added Joyce McQuinnie, a student of British and Australian parentage, to the one-man-and-a-secretary
feng shui
agency operating on Telok Ayer Street, just off the business district in Singapore. The daughter of one of Mr Pun’s property development associates, the young woman had initially been placed with CF Wong & Associates because she was writing a 10,000-word mini-thesis titled
Feng Shui:
Art or Science?
But she had found her first few weeks so enjoyable (to her temporary employer’s amazement) that she had announced that she was going to spend her entire ‘gap year’— whatever that was—in the
feng shui
master’s office.

In theory, having a free assistant (a nominal salary payment for her had been added to Wong’s monthly retainer) should have lightened his load. But she was too strange, too unpredictable, too
gwaai
to be of any use at all. Her thought processes worked in ways that baffled him, her manner was clumsy and insensitive, she knew nothing of the culture in which she worked, and to cap it all, she didn’t speak English— at least, no form of English he had ever encountered.

The previous morning, she had burst into the office in a state of excitement at an article she had found in a glossy magazine. ‘Cheese!’ she had exclaimed.

She showed him a photograph, not of a stinky yellow Western foodstuff, but of a group of drunken young people. ‘P Diddy’s skanky ex is going full-on with Justin from The Dopes,’ she explained. ‘Unreal, totally.’

Wong nodded as if he had been about to say exactly the same thing. Yet there was not a single element of the sentence that had meant anything to him.

‘What could a major slice see in such a pit?’ the eighteen-year-old continued. ‘I
mean.
’

Wong had no idea how to respond, but it didn’t matter because she quickly supplied her own answer: ‘Duckets, that’s what, lucky bloody totty.’

The geomancer considered reaching for his
Dictionary of
Contemporary English Idioms
, but decided against it. The book, although purchased only last year, had proved infuriatingly useless in analysing Joyce’s speech. According to the text, she should be saying things like ‘It is raining cats and dogs’, ‘Goodness, what a palaver’, and ‘The proof is in the pudding’.

When he was completely honest with himself (a rare event), he became dimly aware that there actually were some tiny-but-perceptible benefits of having her in the company. For a start, clients often reacted better to a gregarious young woman than a taciturn old man. But he refused to let such dangerous thoughts take root. For on those rare occasions when she appeared to be contributing something useful, she would inevitably say or do something that would irritate him to such a degree that their relationship would be back at square one.

This week had been particularly hard work, and her impenetrable attempt at conversation the previous morning summed up why. Communication was impossible. It was undeniable: The gulf was too wide to be bridged. A
feng shui
master’s entire skill was creating zones of harmony—and until he was rid of this noisy and pestilent
gwaimooi
, he would have to endure the embarrassing fact that his own working life was stuck in a permanently unsettled, inharmonious state.

So what had happened on that fateful sunny Tuesday to bring such a heartfelt smile to his lips? He had suddenly remembered that Joyce McQuinnie hated fish. She loathed the thought of them. At restaurants, she pushed away seafood dishes with a look of horror. She steered a wide berth around aquariums they encountered during assignments. She held her nose when walking past a fish stall at the market.

Wong conceived a plan. He was going to make his two crosses cancel each other out.

As soon as Joyce arrived at the office that morning, he would assign the reading of Mr Tik’s flat to her, to cover entirely by herself. If she had a miserable time of it and resigned, he would be rid of her at last, and Mr Pun could not hold him responsible. If she did all right—well, he might as well give her all of his really difficult or unpleasant clients until she did quit. Either way, he would win.

He bravely dared to imagine that this could be the beginning of a golden period. At best, he could be entirely free of her within a day. At worst, he could eventually train her to do ten, twenty, thirty per cent of his work for him. His workload would be significantly cut and, as a huge bonus, he would get her out of his office for most of each day. His two biggest problems would be solved at once.

And Mr Pun would be paying for it all. Now this was how capitalism should work!

A thud reverberated through the office as the door was kicked open. The insistent
shh-chka-shh-chka-shh
noise of personal stereo headphones became audible.

Joyce McQuinnie, a lanky teenager whose streaked hair varied between blonde and dark brown, ambled into the room, her face buried in a magazine. It was 10:10 am: more than two-and-a-half hours after Wong had started work. She gave him a brief, nervous smile. ‘Hey, CF!’

‘Come. Job for you today.’ He pointed to the paperwork in front of him.

The
shh-chka-shh-chka
sound grew in volume as she took off the headphones and stared at the plans and charts laid out on his table.

‘You go see Mr Tik. Very nice man, quite old. Easy job. I give you records from last time. You check to see if any changes. Calendar changes I already calculate. I think no problem.’

She turned to him, her eyes widening. ‘Cool. You mean I get to do this by myself?’

He bowed his head.

‘Awesome, like totally!’

‘Remember to count fish.’

‘Fish? Yeeucch.’ She wrinkled her nose.

‘He has two fish pond. But no problem. Very easy.’ He tried to recall a suitable phrase from his book of English idioms. ‘This job is really bowl of roses.’ Or was it cherries? Or apple pie?

She smiled and looked at the floor plan and pile of records from previous visits to the same premises. ‘Neat,’ she said. A cakewalk.’

‘No cakewalk. Apartment. Two bedroom.’

‘No, I meant it’ll be a piece of cake.’

‘You want a piece of cake?’

‘I meant—never mind.’

Wong had the usual grim feeling that he was losing control of the conversation. ‘Here is the address. From now on, I want you to do more job by yourself.’

‘Cool.’ Joyce wanted to set off straight away, but Wong was still a little anxious about letting her have full responsibility for handling a board member.

He sat her down and went through the actions that she would have to perform, making sure that she wrote it all down.

‘Fish. You will check fish.’

‘
Ewww.
Do I have to? I don’t like fish. Except sometimes for ikura sushi with wasabi on the side if it’s a
really
nice restaurant.’

Wong’s face darkened. ‘You must
not
eat Mr Tik’s fish.’

‘I was joking.
Cheese.
’

He explained that the fish were not merely ornamental devices to attract good fortune. Fish of this sort cost hundreds or even thousands of American dollars each, and were regularly auctioned at high prices. Good breeding fish were sometimes fish-napped. Advising on fish security had become a distressingly common part of Wong’s business in the past few months. In the past year, thieves had regularly broken into homes and stolen fish while leaving money and jewellery behind.

‘Fish very important. Importance of fish in
feng shui
of Mr Tik’s apartment cannot be exaggerated.’ Wong touched his fingertips together as he spoke. Ever since he had seen a picture of Confucius in such a pose, he had copied it whenever he had to deliver statements that needed gravitas.

She scribbled down his instructions in a notebook.

In a follow-up case such as this, a
feng shui
reader’s task would be straightforward, he explained. First, ask if there had been any changes in the furniture, fittings, design or usage patterns for the various rooms. Second, check for changes in the number and type of fish. Third, check the birth dates of the home and the homeowner against the current
feng shui
calendar. Fourth, check the view for changes in external influences. Fifth, write lengthy comments on all the above.

‘Most important is number six. But you don’t have to do it.’

‘What?’

‘Write big invoice and wait for cheque. But this time, Mr Pun will pay direct. Special deal for members of his board.’

He made her get out her
feng shui
compass and tested her on
lo pan
readings.

The results, he admitted to himself reluctantly, were impressive. She had clearly learned a great deal over the first half of the year. Not that he had actively taught her anything. She had simply read through every
feng shui
book written in English she could find. And then she had watched him carefully on every assignment. By this time, he was satisfied that her technical know-how was not a problem, and she had the fundamentals down pat—the eight trigrams, the circles of destruction and creation, the yin-yang principles, and the interpretation of the flying star calendar.

But he had two further concerns. One was whether she had a feeling for the symbolism that was a key to Chinese mysticism. That sort of thing you couldn’t get out of books. ‘This shape bad, because looks like a Chinese grave,’ he said, showing her a diagram which looked to Joyce like a ram’s head. ‘So anything this shape is bad.’