The Chinese Alchemist

Eight

Lingfei’s petition to have leave to marry the man of her choice was denied. There was to be no further appeal. The reason given was that the emperor’s Pear Garden Orchestra would be diminished by the loss of her voice and her consummate artistry on the lute. I thought back to that evening when I had watched the orchestra perform, and in my mind tried to place Lingfei there. Perhaps she had seen me that evening, creeping out of the shadows the better to see and hear. Perhaps that was why she had chosen me.

The next time I went to visit Lingfei, I took sweetmeats and flowers, peonies in remembrance of my sister. I had decided before I went that I would make no reference to her petition. When I arrived there, however, I was in for a terrible shock.

She was standing, hair disheveled, several locks of it scattered about the floor, a pair of scissors on the writing table nearby. She held a cleaver in her hand. “Wu Yuan,” she said. “You will cut one finger off each of my hands.”

I was aghast. “I will not, madam!”

“I demand it!” she said. “You are my servant.”

“You will not be able to play the lute,” I said, rather naively. “That is exactly the point,” she said.

Light dawned. “And will you also ask me to pour acid down your throat so you will be unable to sing, madam?” I said, no longer caring if she might guess that I knew of her petition. “Or cut off your feet so you will be unable to dance?” I was very angry now, almost as angry as she. “I will not do that, either.”

She raised the cleaver, as if to cut off her own finger. But then she dropped it, and burst into tears, collapsing onto a couch. I did not know what to say. I did not know what to do. I simply sat beside her and held her hand for a very long time. When I left her, I reached down and picked up a lock of her hair from the floor and took it with me.

I got my passport back the next morning. Mira and Dr. Xie had obviously been persuasive, because they were still sorting through the toxicology reports on Burton. According to Mira, his blood was a toxic soup. She said he could be the poster boy for a campaign on the risks of self-medication. His suitcase had contained a very large plastic bag full of all sorts of stuff, from vitamins and minerals of every description, to the silver goo, to teas and infusions for almost every ailment you could think of, and some you’ve never heard of. Over and above the nasty substances in his blood like mercury and lead that all of us who live in developed nations can acquire just by living, there was the silver, of course; arsenic, perhaps acquired along with the lead through some environmental pollutants; and a host of other things. It sounded as if he’d been taking the elixir of immortality for far too long.

However, the cause of death was very probably hepatitis C. Burton had been suffering from this terrible condition, acquired who-knew-how and when. Perhaps that explained why he was so obsessed with his health. Sadly, many of the substances he took to make himself healthier just made him worse. As Dr. Xie explained to me, and as he’d hinted when we’d discussed the subject earlier, Burton’s body had identified these substances, such as the silver, as invaders and had in some sense turned their attention to them, neglecting the hepatitis C, which had gained the upper hand.

It was very sad, but I also felt like a fool. I had suspected Dr. Xie of poisoning Burton. He had been nothing but generous with his time with me, and that’s how I’d rewarded him. I had thought my life was in danger because Burton had been murdered. Instead, Burton had very foolishly managed to kill himself. I was very glad I hadn’t left an hysterical message for Rob. He would be too polite to say anything, of course, but he would have been puzzled by my reaction, I was sure.

As for Song Liang, the victim in the alley, did I know for certain that he was the same man who had been at the auction in New York, or had stolen the silver box in Beijing? I was beginning to think maybe I didn’t. I had to admit that I’d been more interested in his suit than his face, and for sure he wasn’t wearing fake Hugo Boss or Armani in that alley in Xi’an. He was better dressed than most of the people in that neighborhood, but that could be because he was from Beijing. I’d found that most of the people I saw in Beijing were well dressed, particularly the people in the part of town I spent time in, around the hotel and the auction house. The only information about him that was a link to Chinese art was his position at the Beijing Cultural Relics Bureau, and given that he died in Xi’an, just how relevant could that be?

I had to go to the police station to retrieve my passport. I had also received a call from a brother of Burton’s I’d never heard him mention, who asked me if I would have a look at the contents of Burton’s suitcase, and make a decision as to whether or not anything there was worth sending home. This brother had tracked me down through the Cottingham, Burton having apparently told his employers that I too was after the box for a client, and then to the Beijing hotel where I’d now left a forwarding number, and thence to Xi’an. I took the suitcase back to my hotel and after sitting around staring at it for about an hour willing myself to open it, got around to the unpleasant task.

It was an instructive little exercise, and very, very sad. Where the rest of us put clothes, Burton had a box of surgical gloves, his portable air purifier, disinfectant spray, a large economy-size bottle of hand sanitizer, and another box, this one of surgical masks. There were also two boxes of tissues. Hotels do provide tissues, but I guess Burton wasn’t about to risk the ones in the dispenser in a hotel bathroom. The police had told me they had kept the pills and other potions, a very large plastic bagful. Presumably they had kept the tea apparatus and the teabags, too, because there was no sign of them in the bag.

I figure I’m a good packer, and I travel light, but believe me Burton would have had to do laundry every night. If anything he had fewer changes of underwear than I did in my carry-on bag, which was all I’d brought to Xi’an. He also had five azure scarves, considering them more important than clean underwear, I guess. It was cold, yes, but somehow I’d managed to get along with only one scarf. If it hadn’t all been so awful, it would have been funny. I sent an e-mail to the brother saying there was nothing worth keeping, and I’d see to it that Burton’s clothes, what there were of them, went to a worthy cause. I told him I’d try to find out if Burton had checked any luggage at the hotel in Beijing when he’d flown to Xi’an. The surgical gloves, masks, air purifier, disinfectant spray, and the like I tossed in the waste basket.

Life went back to normal almost immediately. My capacity for self-delusion is as bad as the next person’s, and it must have been in high gear that day. All it took was a tentative finding of accidental death in Burton’s case, and I was prepared to believe all was well and that I should just get on with my life. I would forget the search for the silver box, I would do something appropriate to mourn poor Burton, and I would go to Taiwan as soon as they’d let me.

First order of the day was to deal with the demons. It was Wednesday, another antique market day at the Baxian Gong. I decided to go. I walked slowly through the park outside the city walls, and into the neighborhood beyond the ugly high-rises, telling myself over and over that I could do this.

I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to revisit the alley, but that wasn’t a problem because I was pretty sure I would never be able to find it. However, the person I did want to see was the antique dealer with the scar on her face. It was pretty clear that she wished me no ill. Indeed, she was my guardian angel. She’d dragged me out of that alley and got me to my hotel when my legs had turned to lead. I’d have been standing there for a long time if she hadn’t, maybe long enough that the police would have wanted to spend more time with me than they already had. Still, I really wanted to know how she knew where I was staying. There was always a possibility that she didn’t, that she’d just sent me to one of the closest tourist hotels to get me out of there. At the very least, I owed her a thank you.

Looking back on these thought processes of mine now, from a safe distance, I am amazed at how proficient I was becoming at rationalizing just about everything. I felt almost euphoric, as if this huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders with the news that Burton’s death was an accident. My life had never been in danger at all.

In any event, the woman with the scar on her face wasn’t there. I looked everywhere, including the shops that lined the little plaza. And then, given that I was having no luck with the task I’d set myself, I started doing what I said maybe an hour earlier that I absolutely would not. I began to look for the silver box again. I mean, I was there anyway, wasn’t I? Somewhere in the back of my mind, I must have been planning this, because I had put the copy I’d made of the photograph in the Molesworth Cox catalog in my bag before I went out. It was ridiculously rash, of course, but having been told Burton had essentially killed himself by accident, the threat had receded from my mind. I got out the photograph and started negotiating the narrow aisles between the stalls, by which I mean sheets on the ground on which the items were displayed, asking each of the dealers in turn if they had seen such a thing. Some of them understood the question, others did not. All shook their heads.

In the middle aisle I came upon a dealer who had some very interesting objects on display, including a lovely jade disk that I thought, despite a crack, would make a truly unique piece of jewelry with minimal effort. I picked it up and then looked into the face of the dealer who had it on offer, planning to try to purchase it, and also to show off my photograph of the silver box.

The man was dressed in a rather scruffy-looking padded jacket against the cold, worn boots, and pants. He had a cap pulled down low, and his face was a little smudged with dirt. It was, however, Liu David, lawyer and business consultant from Beijing, the same man who couldn’t call me back because he was in Shanghai, or if not David, then his identical twin. I opened my mouth to say something, and he gave me just the very slightest of shakes of his head. I closed my mouth, set down the jade disk, and moved on.

This was perplexing indeed. I supposed there were several possible explanations for Liu David’s presence there, but there was only one I liked. Regardless, I’d obviously seen something I wasn’t supposed to, and the best course of action was to get out of there. Trying not to look too hasty, I made my way along the aisle stopping occasionally to look at something, on to the street, and then, at as stately a pace as I could muster when my inclination was to run, back to the city walls. I liked the idea of big, high city walls between me and the antique market at the Baxian Gong.

I didn’t get far, however. I was about a block or two away from the antique market when a man, one I recognized from the market, and to whom I had shown the photograph of the silver box, approached me. His English was such that we could make ourselves understood, if not exactly converse about the problems besetting the planet. He suggested he had some objects I would be interested in seeing. I asked him about the silver box.

“Yes,” he said. “T’ang. You come with me. I take you to box.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this when I asked?” I said, just a tad suspiciously.

“Too many ears,” he said. “Also police always watching us. They are corrupt,” he added. “They want money not to arrest me.”

I didn’t know whether that was true or not, although it was depressing to think it might be. Part of me assumed this was a variation on what I refer to as the tax-collector pitch, which goes something like this: dealer notices you admiring something, whispers in your ear that he will give you a very special price because the tax collector is over there, whereupon he gestures somewhere indeterminate, and he has to pay him or her off or he will be in trouble, and he is a man with a family, etc., etc. I’ve heard this one all over the world.

I wasn’t sure how far I was going with this man, my newly discovered confidence in my safety not stretching so far as to enter a blind alley with him, but I did follow along. He kept to well-crowded streets, which helped, and as he chatted away to me, I began to feel more confident.

He stopped at a tiny house on a very small street, opened the door and gestured to me to go in. I didn’t think that was a good idea, but I looked in, and saw a woman playing with a very young child. She, too, gestured me in. An older woman, the grandmother, I expect, immediately went to a pot over a fire and started to make tea. It seemed pretty harmless. In fact, it was playing out the way it so often did when I was on a buying trip, with the approach in the street, the ritual cup of tea at the home of the dealer, and then the unveiling of the merchandise, for a special price, of course, just for me.

The Chinese version of this time-honored and nearly universal ritual included excellent little pancakes with green onions in them that the grandmother made, something I thought added to the occasion considerably and might happily be picked up by salesmen elsewhere. The rather stilted conversation from the dealer, the only family member who spoke English, was sadly familiar, however. After the social niceties had been observed, I was led out a back door into a little courtyard, and then to a padlocked door in the building to one side of the courtyard. There was no way I was going any further with this man, and I said so.

He grabbed my arm. “Please,” he said. “Tang.”

I peered into the room, being careful to stand just in the doorway so I could run if I had to. There was T’ang all right, several pieces, in fact, including sancai, or three-colored glazed earthenware pottery, in this case four ceramic figures of musicians, all women, each about eight inches tall. The earthenware is called sancai but in fact it often employs more than three colors, as was the case here. The colors, red, green, blue, yellow, and a soft purple were faded, as were the facial expressions, but if anything this enhanced their beauty. They were undoubtedly authentic. There was a dusting of dirt on them, which is a pretty easy way to give the impression, to the uninitiated at least, that the objects were old. In this case, however, I was pretty sure they really were. They were almost as certainly looted merchandise. “T’ang,” the dealer repeated, as he whipped out a calculator. It was his favorite word. He keyed in a few numbers and showed the result to me.

Despite my conviction these were stolen artifacts, something of which it would be almost impossible to convince oneself otherwise in such a setting, I wanted them. I admit it. In fact, I would have given my firstborn for them. I could have bargained him down to something I was prepared to pay—of that I was sure, given his starting position—just a few hundred dollars for the lot. They were exquisite. The women were slim and graceful, the faces charmingly expressive, the little instruments perfect in almost every detail. Figures like this, I had learned from Dory, came in the slim variety and the well-rounded. Dory had told me the latter came into vogue because one emperor rather fancied a little excess flesh on his concubines. These women, though, followed the more traditional svelte lines.

Who would know I had these? I found myself asking. There ate lots of T’ang tomb figures to be had on the open market in North America. Once out of China, they would look perfectly legitimate. Furthermore, if Burton had been right, I would have little trouble getting these out of the country. I was reasonably sure that any moment now my newfound friend would offer an export stamp as part of the deal. Reluctantly, I told myself to get a grip. What was I thinking? In the first place, I really enjoy not being in jail, most especially a jail in a foreign country. Furthermore, one can only imagine what my Rob would think if he found out. Not only that, but I rather fancied myself as an ethical antique dealer. Clearly my commitment to ethical behavior is not as robust as I like to think it is.

“Where did you get these?” I asked.

“Tomb,” the man said. “What you pay?” I told him I wasn’t going to buy them, as beautiful as they were. It was not easy to do so, and predictably he took this as my opening gambit rather than a firm decision on my part. “How much?” he demanded again. “T’ang. Very beautiful.”

“No,” I said, taking the photograph out of my bag. “Silver box.”

“T’ang,” he said again. He picked up one of the musicians. “T’ang. Stamp for export, yes. I will give you.”

“T’ang, yes, but not a silver box. I want this silver box.” I wondered what an export stamp would cost me in addition to the price of the musicians.

He continued to wave the musician under my nose. “Special price for you,” he said over and over. “You tell me what you pay.” In retaliation, I kept waving the photo of the silver box under his nose. There was a lot of arm-waving going on.

It was a fruitless gesture, however, on both sides. As lovely as these pieces were, it was pretty clear I’d been brought to this house under false pretenses. He didn’t have the box.

He’d have brought it out by now if he had. It was time to go. The man looked disgusted as I walked back through the courtyard and through his house, pausing only to say thank you to the two women and to smile at the child. I handed the wife a few coins, which I hoped she wouldn’t give to her husband.

It was only as I left the house that I realized that I was very near the spot where Song Liang had died, at the other end of the L-shaped alley in fact. When I turned right, I could see that the alley was blocked off with tape at the end. I took a quick look and, sure enough, it was almost certainly the same place where I’d witnessed the murder. There was a dark stain on the ground where he’d fallen. I’d just come at it from the same direction as the motorcycles, rather than the way I’d entered it before, which was probably just as well, because I would never have followed the man into the alley from that direction. Had that happened, I would not have learned what I had from the visit, which is to say that T’ang tombs were being looted somewhere nearby.

This proximity did lead to some interesting questions, however. Assuming Song Liang was indeed Mr. Knockoff and furthermore had stolen the box, and if he had had it in his possession the day he died, as I had surmised he might, was he bringing it to the man I had just met to sell for him? Did the man have the silver box even if he hadn’t shown it to me? Or had the men on the motorcycles stolen it from Song before he could get there? Did the dealer I’d just visited have an inkling of any of this, or was Song just trying to unload the box as fast as he could? There were many questions I would have liked to ask the dealer, but I didn’t think there was any way he’d answer them, and furthermore I wasn’t sure it was in my best interests, given that I wanted to get out of this country in one piece, to pursue it with him.

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.