The Book of Lost Fragrances

Seven

PARIS, FRANCE

THURSDAY, MAY 19, 8:30 P.M.

Warned not to be late, Tom Huang hurried across the street while scanning the long block for number eighteen. The teahouse was in the section of Paris they called Quartier Chinois, but little about the area was as appealing as the appellation. Unlike the narrow streets and charming ambiance of old Paris, the thirteenth arrondissement’s Chinatown was overpopulated and overcrowded with skyscrapers and supermarkets. There were none of the chic cafés, charming florists, iconic boutiques and authentic bakeries that made so much of the city attractive. This wasn’t Huang’s Paris, and whenever he visited here, he felt oppressed. Especially during the day, when every ugly nuance of the blocks of buildings stood out in high detail.

At least now, at night, the blazing neon signs advertising everything from McDonald’s to traditional French fare offered some visual excitement that matched his mood. A clandestine meeting with the head of the Chinese underworld in Paris was not, even for Huang, a regular occurrence. But yesterday, after getting word through his spies that a curator at Christie’s had inspected fragments of an object purported to be a reincarnation memory aid, Huang had to act.

He finally found the restaurant squeezed in between a bank and a laundry. The small, shabby place was just one room, crammed with yellowed Formica tabletops and cracked red leather seats. The floor was a checkerboard of linoleum, the black and white tiles stained and faded. Despite the late hour, more than half the tables were filled with groups of Chinese men, drinking tea and talking-not French but a cacophony of different Chinese dialects. Hundreds of pieces of calligraphy-black characters with occasional touches of red-hung on the walls, and the glass covering them was smudged with years of restaurant grease.

Despite the visible signs of neglect, Huang felt reassured by the familiar incense of seeping tea, brewed flowers and spices and roasted rice and toasted barley. Huang circumnavigated the tables to the far-right corner, where a wizened man, bald and slightly hunched over, sat with his back to the wall. He was ordinary looking, wearing ordinary clothes. Yet this was the man who oversaw a network of tens of thousands of members, a sworn brotherhood engaged in a wide range of criminal activity specializing in smuggling, VAT fraud, drug trafficking, and more.

Huang paused as the waiter set down a glazed teapot. He’d been instructed to act as if he and the man were already acquainted, so he nodded his head, said hello, pulled out a chair, and sat down. On the table in front of him were thirteen white porcelain teacups arranged in a rectangle with one cup in the middle.

The ritual Huang was about to engage in was over three thousand years old and had been abandoned by most Hak Sh’e Wui bosses, but the head of this local black society-only Caucasians called them Triads-still engaged in the old customs. The ancient ceremony had been a way to test an unknown visitor and ascertain if he was a member of the secret society or not. It made sense in the days when there was no internet, telephone, or even a dependable mail system, but now it was just another of Gu Zhen’s idiosyncrasies.

Huang reached for the lone cup in the middle-in the Triad’s language telling the boss he was one of them, literally an insider.

Gu Zhen poured tea for himself and then for his guest. Huang watched, riveted by Zhen’s deliberately slow, teasing movement as he put the teapot back down. If he placed the spout facing Huang, it would mean the meeting was over, that he’d considered his request, didn’t trust him or was upset with him and wouldn’t give Huang his help or his blessing.

The spout was facing away from him. This meant his next step was to drain his cup and set it back on the table bottom up to send a signal that he wanted to discuss something. He did so.

Gu Zhen nodded. “I can help you,” he whispered in a low rasp. “But it will be expensive. We prefer not to deal outside of our regular businesses.”

“Money’s not an object. Our government doesn’t want this toy to get into the wrong hands.”

The old man raised his gray eyebrows. “Toy?” He said the word as if he tasted it and then took a sip of his tea.

Huang had been warned that it was in his best interest to respect the elder, engage in the tea drinking ceremony, and not exhibit any sign of impatience if he wanted to get the help he sorely needed to accomplish this mission. So here he remained, sipping tea from a small, stained porcelain cup, twenty minutes, eight kilometers and a world away from his elegant office in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China on Avenue George V.

“So what can you tell me about this toy, as you call it?” Gu Zhen asked.

“It’s supposed to be some kind of ancient tool to help people remember their past lives.”

“Which you think is a joke?”

“What I think isn’t important. The way we’re fighting this war, we’re not making headway. We have a situation with no end in sight. Buddhists are not giving up. The world is still on the side of the exiled Tibetans, even if most governments are afraid of us. We don’t want this unrest. We don’t want any more monks becoming martyrs by setting themselves on fire. The last thing we need is a rumor that there is a way to finally prove reincarnation.” Huang had heard of other portals that supposedly helped people connect with past lives. An ancient flute in Vienna. A cache of stones in Rome. The Chinese had been unable to get their hands on any of them. But according to information that came from his undercover connection in the Buddhist community, this one was here in Paris.

“If it were to get into the hands of the religious zealots, it would give them fuel. They broke the law two weeks ago. They claimed they found a reincarnated lama in Lhasa. Something expressly forbidden.” Huang spat out the words. “Every time they stage another so-called peaceful protest, they know we’re going to step in. Then the fighting starts all over again, and more monks martyr themselves. That brings the media. And it turns into an international circus. The Tibetans know that. That wolf in monk’s robes knows it. Two hundred people were killed in the last two weeks. And we all have the blood on our hands.”

“Who has this tool?” Gu Zhen asked. “And do you care what happens to him?”