Jade Woman

21

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LOVING’S generative in every sense. I catered for a lovely Colombian lady—God, talk about talkative—who between conversations made businesslike love, drenching us both in scent. Her earrings, gold scythes, nearly had my ears off. It was a mess because I couldn’t understand a word and she knew no English. It didn’t stop her talking. During round two I began remembering Montgomery. He’s an old bloke in Suffolk who prints fake old maps—mostly Cotterell’s 1824 editions from Bath—honestly almost as good as the originals. It’s his regular income. In fact he does so well I’m occasionally astonished to come across collectors without a set.

Not quite the sort of scam I was looking for, but getting closer. I showed how pleased I was to Carmelita. She was still expressing her pleasure in words as she left two hours later. A real pro. She left me an LP record, signed, with her exotic photo on the sleeve, and tipped me a gold bracelet. I’ve never worn anything like that in my life. Could sell it, I suppose. Don’t women surprise you? A world-known pop singer, it seemed. I knew her job would have been something with vocal cords.

Then again, I thought before tottering down to rejoin Steerforth’s next assignment, fake-jewelry scams can be stupendous. The trouble is they’re easily spoiled. I remembered a bloke we call Willynilly, from Norwich, nice chap with a pot leg from a farm accident. Willy had this idea of finding a medieval hoard of jewels near Saxmundham. It’s called a rainbow job in the trade, after the leprechaun’s pot of gold.

Five of us contributed gold pendants, rings, pins. I made a pair of lovely Anglo-Saxon beast-and-bird brooches, using the original medieval goldsmithing techniques. Willynilly made a killing, selling to unscrupulous dealers. He was assisted by law, of course—he put word around that he wanted to avoid a coroner’s Treasure Trove court so had to sell without invoices, all money in used notes, a right carry-on (meaning no legal comeback if the purchasers recognized the fakes). Willynilly was rumbled, though. It was his own fault. So impressed was he with the success of his neffie scheme that he started making crude casts of our fakes. Silly sod. This turned his unique “antiques” into a mass production rip-off. Angry German dealers exacted restitution, so police became aware of the uproar, so Willynilly’s still doing time for tax evasion, forgery, heaven knows what.

Sadly, I rejected the notion of a rainbow job. Too vulnerable. Moreover, I couldn’t risk any comebacks such as exposure of the fakes by horrid laboratory investigations. I gulped and decided to think again.

Thoughts of my survival scheme came to haunt me in every post-loving doze, every dance at the Digga Dig. The clients acted as stimuli. Resting, after a matronly Singaporean lady, prompted thoughts of a possible scam in relics.

About relics.

There are churches dedicated to Christ’s foreskin—believers argue that, given his corporeal ascension, it logically constitutes the only earthly remains. Ancient monasteries fought, sued, stole, purloined, and invested fortunes (plus even, I daresay, a little prayer) in saintly relics. Without being blasphemous, an antique dealer could be forgiven for thinking of holiness. Behind all that medieval mayhem of course lay money and power. Reason? Why, it collared pilgrimage, the ancient world’s tourist trade.

Destitute peasants grubbing a feudal living couldn’t afford to travel, but barons, their ladies, and entourages could and did. Wealth meant mobility back in those days, as now. Attract enough pilgrims and you convert shabby little hamlets like old Lourdes into, well, new Lourdes in all its ghastly glitterdom. Or any patch of modern wasteland into a money-spinning airport. In the Middle Ages churches hired squads and did secret deals to nick relics and attract endowments. Sounds familiar? It ought to—it’s exactly our nowadays game of museum funding, endowing colleges, pulling crowds by the fame of an institute’s art paintings, academic publications, whatever. So instead of kneeling at a tomb praying pious prayers for a chapel’s benefactor, one pays to see an art collection in the Joe Soap Wing of this or that gallery. It’s called progress. If I seem cynical, hang on, because relics get grimmer.

I drove my somber thoughts on, into ancient China and the sacred bones of the Compassionate Buddha.

Remember 1974? Reports came of that staggering terra-cotta army of thousands of warriors excavated near Xian City. It was at a time when mainland tourism was nil, on account of bothersome political ideologies. But little stands in the way of true lust.

China and the world realized the attraction of a vast life-size array of chariots, sculptured horses, ranks upon ranks of soldiers, all utterly authentic and dating from two centuries b.c. And presto! —overnight China became an archaeological Valhalla.

Some twenty thousand prime archaeological sites are known and unexcavated. Tourists troop in. Archaeological digs multiply like the legends that breed them. Do those solid-gold ducks still bob on that river of mercury in the tomb of Emperor Gao Zong somewhere near Xian?—Well, old records say so. No wonder antique dealers drool and collectors’ agents bribe ministries of culture everywhere for licenses to dig…

My chances of dreaming up a scheme to outdo the reality of China’s fantastic finds were nil, of course. And getting even one of those immense terra-cottas would be hopeless—

okay for big organizations like the Triads, but not a one-man band. Relics are different.

They’re small. They’re smuggleable. They’re priceless. They’re divisible.

In 1981, word goes, a researcher happened across a big box of squarish white jade in the Leiyin Cave, a famous site on Shijing Mountain, near the Yunju temple. It’s within fifty miles of Peking. Two shariras, fragments of the Buddha’s bones, were found inside.

Word is they’re pretty well documented, owing to some jiggery pokey by the Emperor Wan Li’s naughty old mother, which I won’t go into. The point is that over fifty shariras were known to have been sent to China when the Buddha passed over. Now fifty’s a lot. And bone’s cheap, no? A posh antique jade box and you’re up and away on a scam.

Good advertising would virtually ensure success. It’s exactly the same nasty con trick pulled between Harold II of Hastings and William of Normandy— Battle of Hastings and all that—before William legitimately took the English crown. There’s nothing new under the sun.

Promising, but an hour later I’d decided against faking sacred relics. It could easily be done with meager resources, but there were too many intangibles. One was holiness.

Not mine, I hasten to add, but other people’s. I’ve never trusted it. It’s risky stuff. I sighed, smiled at my Singaporean lady as she stirred. The scheme wasn’t there yet, but coming, coming…

Well, the great Rodin never carved a single one of his fabled marble sculptures. He had teams of poor sloggers for that.

Back to square one again.