The Hua Shan Hospital Murders (20 page)

The shot thundered in his ears.

Just a glance – or a non-glance and a life changes.
The slightest pressure on the metal of a pistol’s trigger and a life ends.

A viciously bright flash – a young man – a beautiful young man – a Chinese man – whose associates called Angel Michael – lay dead on the floor – a single bullet hole in his forehead – an even-sided cross half in and half out of his mouth. There is remarkably little blood. The silence in the room is momentarily profound.

Then the children scream – and life continues.

Fong let the gun fall and turned away. It was a lucky shot. He knew it. He could as easily have killed Xiao Ming as Angel Michael.

Police officers rushed into the room from all sides.
Crying children and shouting cops. At the height of the mayhem Fong saw Captain Chen leap up on the dais, grab Xiao Ming, and hold her tight to his chest. Lily was only a step behind him.

But Fong didn’t move toward his wife and child.

He didn’t know why or why his eyes were drawn upward to the black cinder of the scroll that rose on hidden currents and twisted and turned like a thing that although dead – refused to die.

Fong wasn’t surprised how out of place Robert Cowens seemed in the small canteen at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. No one in Shanghai has a kitchen so everyone eats in places like the canteen. The food was inexpensive and reasonably good but not really open to the public so it was only the rare foreigner who found their way into such places. Sometimes, because the canteen was connected to the theatre academy, Fong would see foreigners – usually guest directors – seated at the rickety tables picking carefully through the food in front of them.
He recalled one such Caucasian who had dragged his translator to the canteen to identify the meat he had been eating for weeks. When the white man came to the table with a dish of the mystery meat, the translator’s face went a little pale. “This,” he’d said pointing at the plate of breaded, deep-fried meat covered in a sweet brown sauce. “This. What kind of meat is this?”

The man’s translator had taken a breath then put on her best smile and said, “Chicken. It’s chicken.”

The man had looked at her and replied, “You won’t understand this but I’ve had chicken every Friday night for my entire life and I’ve never seen a piece of chicken like this.”

The translator had nodded then said, “Ah. But this is thin chicken.”

The man looked at her with a strange expression on his face. “Thin chicken?”

The translator gave a small apologetic smile and raised her arm from the elbow then moved her hand back and forth to indicate the movements of the head of a snake. “Very thin chicken.”

The man’s face darkened and he croaked out the word, “Snake?”

She’d nodded and said, “It’s very good for you. Especially now, in winter.”

“So I’ve been eating snake all this time?”

She nodded.

He shrugged. “Fuck it – it tastes good – and I feel particularly . . .”

“Virile?” she asked. “Snake is a man’s food.”

The memory made Fong smile.

“What’re you smiling about, you old thief?” said Robert Cowens as he sat down beside Fong.

Fong was not even a little surprised that Robert carried a plate of deep-fried cobra covered in a goopy brown sauce. “What are you wagging your head about, Detective Zhong?”

“Nothing.”

“How’s the food in this place?”

“Virile.”

“What?”

“The chief smokes while he cooks, so check for butts.”

Robert took a large mouthful of the cobra and sighed. “It’s good.”

“I’m glad,” Fong said. “How’s the hand?”

“The burn was deep so it only healed partially.”

“Does it hurt still?”

“No. It just reminds me – of things.”

Fong looked at the man across from him, “So to what do I owe the pleasure of your company this evening?” he asked in mock surprise.

He mocked back, “I was hungry. I was in Shanghai. I thought it would be nice to see you.”

Fong smiled, then said, “For a lawyer, you are a very poor liar.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Do.”

“It’s two months. I held up my end of the bargain. Now you hold up yours.”

Fong looked at the white man closely. Beneath the table he fingered the envelope that contained the details of a business transaction entered into in January 1944. “May I ask you a question?”

Robert sighed. “If you have to.”

“I don’t have to. I am asking your permission.”

“Sure.”

“Were you close to your father?”

“Close? You mean did I care about my father?”

“Please. I am trying to be helpful. I lost my father when I was six. I only have the vaguest memory of him. I have no way of knowing if sons grow close to their fathers as they get older.”

“Okay. That’s fair. Yes. I was close to my father. Very close.”

Fong nodded then said, “If that is the case I don’t think you want to know what my investigations have found.”

Robert let that sink in. “The truth . . .”

“. . . will set you free? I doubt that Mr. Cowens.”

“Did you find my sister Rivkah?”

“Yes. She died of malaria in the 1947 outbreak.”

Robert took that blow right to the face. He flushed then rocked back in his chair. He pushed his food away. “That bastard!”

“Which bastard, Mr. Cowens?”

“That son of a bitch Silas Darfun!!”

“Wrong son of a bitch, Mr. Cowens.”

Devil Robert stopped in his tracks as if he were in a long tunnel and had just seen the light of a train coming straight toward him. He couldn’t speak. He felt himself go very hot then suddenly cold. And in his heart he knew.

“Silas Darfun was a great man, Mr. Cowens. He saved many people. I may not have liked the way that he made his money but I am very much in favour of the way he spent what he had. Children of all races and colours were raised by him and his Chinese wife. Many are powerful people today because of what he offered them. Your sister was never in his care. If she had been she would have been returned at the end of the war like all the others that he harboured.”

Then in a voice from far away Robert heard himself asking, “Then who had her?”

“Silas offered to look after your sister but would not pay money for her.” Fong placed a document on the table. “Your sister was sold to a factory that used small children to climb into machinery and untwine the threads of the textiles when they clogged the gears.”

“But my mother would never have . . .”

Fong looked at the man across from him and then Robert was crying. He knew. “It wasn’t my mother, was it?”

Fong shook his head. “Your father was a diabetic?”

Robert nodded through his tears.

“It must have been hard to find insulin in Shanghai during the war.”

Robert stood. In his mind he saw his mother –
No, Mommy. No Mommy no.
All those years of thinking it was his mad mother when in fact his father had been the one. Old Europeans and their secrets. Old Europeans and their fucking secrets.

Fong offered a napkin to Robert and he took it. To Robert’s surprise somehow a load had been lifted from him. He brushed aside the tears and felt lighter.
He nodded his head several times allowing the new family history to jog into place. Then he sat.

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry it came out as it did.”

“Me too – no, not true. I’m not sorry. Sad yes, but not sorry.”

Fong nodded.

Robert looked around. “Where’s your wife?”

Fong instinctively retreated to his privacy then thought about it a moment and returned. “With Captain Chen. You met him . . .”

“The bovine young man?”

“Bovine means cowlike?”

“Yes.”

“Yes with the bovine young man.”

Robert looked at Fong hard – “With, as in lives with?”

“Yes,” said Fong. “They share many things. They are a better couple than she and I.”

“And the baby?”

“She stays with me when I can manage. I have . .
.” Fong didn’t complete his thought because over Robert’s shoulder he saw Joan Shui walk into the restaurant and raise her hand to him. Robert sensed her approach and turned.

He looked back at Fong questioningly.

Fong raised his shoulders and said, “A little faith and things work out, Mr. Cowens.”

Robert pulled out a chair for Joan Shui who offered her hand to him. He took it and was amazed by the supple pleasure of her touch.

She took off her coat. She was wearing a large T-shirt that had emblazoned on its front: LIFE IS A JOURNEY, NOT SOME STUPID GUIDED TOUR.

As she moved toward the kitchen both men watched her. Then Robert turned to Fong and said, “I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you. May I offer you a piece of advice?”

After a moment Robert said, “Certainly.”

“You think you are back in Shanghai just to find out about your sister but that is not the only reason you are here. You just won’t admit it. Please don’t try to protest. You will have to have a little faith and call her.”

Robert sat very still. “I assume you have Tuan Li’s phone number.”

“I’m a cop so of course I do.”

“Good.” Fong flipped him his cell phone and said, “Have a little faith, make the call.”

As Robert dialled, Joan Shui returned from the kitchen bearing a large chocolate cake with a single brilliant candle lit in the middle. Every eye in the canteen watched as she moved toward the table and deposited the cake in its centre. “It’s Wu Fan-zi’s fifty-third birthday,” she said.

Fong smiled sadly.

Joan met his smile.

Together they blew out the candle and – as an act of faith – made a wish.

* * *

“I’m porous with travel fever
But so happy to be on my own”

“Hejira” by Joni Mitchell