The Hua Shan Hospital Murders

CHAPTER TWELVE

The lobby of the Shanghai Hilton was awash with cops and hoteliers trying to give their information to those cops. In the midst of the mayhem Fong called in Wu Fan-zi’s suggestion to the section of Special Investigations that monitored banking transactions in and out of the Middle Kingdom. They promised to get right on it.

Fong sat back and watched the mounting chaos around him. He knew that nothing would come from the search for the American tourist with the camcorder or from the people looking into the bank transfers until morning. By midnight they should have some basic data. By dawn it could be narrowed down by removing those who weren’t in Shanghai on the appropriate days or in the case of the camcorder tourist, those who are of the wrong age. By midmorning they’d probably have a list of fifty tourists who vaguely fit the description and double that having hefty bank transfers during the appropriate time period. Preliminary interviews could start by mid- to late morning. There was nothing much for Fong to do until that time.

The banking information and the tourist with the camcorder were his best leads but they were hardly solid and he knew it. So he trebled the security forces at the sixteen hospitals that provided abortion services for the greater Shanghai area and left the Hilton lobby.

Shanghai was beginning to prepare for the evening. Young couples walked arm-in-arm and stole kisses in the shadows. Some right out in the light. How different they were from him and Fu Tsong when they were young and courting. He got into his car and radioed ahead to the nearest of the hospitals. The captain there reported that he had been supplied with a small corps of troops that he had stationed inside and around the hospital’s perimeter. Fong warned him not to talk to reporters. The man acknowledged that he understood. Fong ended his conversation saying, “I want any Caucasian found on the grounds or even near the hospital held for questioning. Is that clear?”

“Totally, sir.”

“Good. I’ll expect a report in the morning.”

“It’ll be there. May I ask a question – sir?”

“Go ahead, Captain.”

“Do you think he’ll try again?”

“No.”

“No, you don’t think he’ll try again or no you don’t think he’ll try again because you know he’ll try again?”

Fong allowed a moment of silence then said, “Are you native Shanghanese, Captain?”

“Born and bred.”

“Me too, Captain – so you know the answer to your question, don’t you?”

“The latter.”

“You bet. Keep your eyes open – especially around surgery rooms with windows.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fong hung up and dialled the second hospital on the list. He went through the same procedure. After contacting the last of the sixteen hospitals he headed home. But even as he parked his car, he knew he wasn’t heading toward Lily and Xiao Ming. He was heading toward his one place of true calm, his only real sanctuary in Shanghai, the decrepit old theatre on the academy’s campus that had been his first wife’s, Fu Tsong’s, favourite place to perform.

While Fong waited for rehearsal to begin he leafed through the newspapers he’d bought outside the academy grounds at the kiosk run by the smiling boy with the bad teeth. Fong had bought papers there for years. Of late he’d noticed a distinct change in the young man. Now the boy called himself an entrepreneur and had raised the price he was charging for the papers. Fong wasn’t about to pay any more than was required.

“You not able to read the price printed on the masthead?” Fong asked.

“That’s the wholesale price. I’m a retailer,” said the boy sticking out his chest with pride. Fong snatched the papers he wanted and barked, “You, my young friend, are a paperboy in a wooden box, not the Shell Oil Company.”

Fong opened the first of the papers and was happy not to see any story on the abortion bombing. The Shanghai paper led with a story about nine men killed in a fireworks explosion, not a new disaster in this part of the world. On the sidebar was a story about China’s trade with Taiwan – US$32 billion in 2001. Fong had no way of knowing if that was above or below expectation. He did assume that once you traded that much with Taiwan it could be hard to make them do as you wished. At the bottom of the page there was a surprise, an article about China sending Buddha’s finger bone to Taiwan for display.

Fong smoothed out the paper on his knees. Deaths in a fireworks accident, trade issues with Taiwan, and Buddha’s finger bone – was it only him who found those things incongruous all on one page.

He put aside the local paper and took the biggest of the Hong Kong dailies. This paper had an even stranger mix. The lead story was about a new design for the black hoods used to hide a suspect’s identity while being transported to and from courtrooms. This was accompanied by a large photo of the hood. Below the picture was an article about a man who was arrested for shouting loudly into a policeman’s ear. If that was not odd enough, the whole bottom of the front page was filled with a by-lined article about a man who successfully sued an attempted suicide victim for damaging his car in his fall from a six-story building. It was only on the second page that a news story actually appeared. The mainland government had agreed to allow visa-free trips to the Pearl River Delta via Hong Kong.

The Taiwanese paper led with a story about the record number of Taiwanese wanting to study on the mainland, followed by an article chronicling a 20-percent rise in AIDS cases on the island. Then an article about Taiwan’s desire to increase trade with Japan and their Premier’s desire for a meeting with Jiang Zemin. “Fat chance,” Fong thought. But it was a small article at the bottom of the page that drew his full attention. The Taiwanese were bragging about their assistance in obtaining the release of a young American who had been caught smuggling Bibles onto the mainland.

Fong quickly grabbed the local Shanghai paper. The article about Buddha’s finger bone and the Taiwanese article about the Bible smuggler were both in the bottom right-hand corner of their respective papers. Fong put them aside and leaned back in his chair. He tried to remember when religious stories began to appear in newspapers. He couldn’t recall. When had faith become central to the news? Why was organized superstition now on the front page?

The director of Othello, Roger, walked out on the stage and asked for quiet in the house. “Mei you fa tze – it’s good luck,” Fong thought. A Chinese rehearsal room was often as loud as it was smoky. And it was always smoky. When a foreign director asked Chinese actors not to smoke they assumed that he meant don’t smoke now. So they’d butt out then light up again within the hour, the half hour – almost immediately. It was pretty much inconceivable to most Chinese actors that there is a way of acting without a cigarette.

Tuan Li entered the stage from prompt side and the house got as quiet as it gets. The Afro-American actor playing Othello quickly joined her. The main set pieces for their bedroom were moved forward.

Fong reached for Fu Tsong’s copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. The actors moved toward the bed. They eyed each other, quite ignoring the director. As Fu Tsong had told him so many times, “No director can help you even half as much as a good acting partner.” Tuan Li sat on the bed and suddenly her Othello thrust his great hand directly at her face, stopping a mere inch from her nose. She gasped but held her ground. Then his long fingers encircled her throat as he said:

“Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,

Made to write ‘whore’ upon? What committed!

Committed! O thou public commoner!

I should make very forges of my cheeks,

That would to cinders burn up modesty,

But I did speak thy deeds.”

Tuan Li didn’t move her elegant head from her Othello’s hand and, as Desdemona, stared straight into his eyes and replied,

“By heaven you do me wrong.”

He returned her stare and bellowed:

“Are you not a strumpet?”

releasing her head with so much force that she stumbled back to the bed, almost falling. But she kept her balance and most impressively her composure.

“No. As I am a Christian.

If I preserve this vessel for my lord

From any other foul unlawful touch

Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.”

Othello was once again quickly upon her.

“What! Not a whore?”

To which she snapped back:

“No, as I shall be sav’d.”

Fong looked down at his text to get the Mandarin translation for the last exchange and noticed Fu Tsong’s note: The Christians have a god that saves them if they are pure. What is there here for us like that? What for me is like being saved for Desdemona?

Fong read Fu Tsong’s note a second time, then a third. How little he had known her. He wondered if she had ever answered her question? Did she think she was going to be saved even as she fell into the pit? Fong had to admit that he didn’t even know if she was religious. He looked up. The Afro-American actor was in full flight:

“I cry you mercy then;

I took you for that cunning whore of Venice

That married with Othello. You, mistress,

That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,

And keep the gate of hell.”

Fong nodded his head. If they believe in a heaven and being saved they no doubt believe in a hell and being damned. He wasn’t sure it was worth the trade and although there was much of Marxist rhetoric that he rejected he didn’t dismiss the claim that religion was nothing more than an opiate for the masses. Fong had seen many things that had struck him as wrong – but evil – evil was different and sat in territory that made him extremely uncomfortable. He found it more than uncomfortable – he found it dangerous. Who gets to say what is evil and what is not? Although not a young man himself, he wasn’t at all pleased with the idea that sapped-out old men with beards could or should dictate to the rest of the species by playing on every person’s innate fear of death. That these old assholes could dictate the rules of behaviour with fairy stories of rewards and punishments struck him as obscene.

He looked at Fu Tsong’s markings at the top of the next page of text. It referred back to an earlier line in the play – Act III, Scene III, line 270. Fong turned to the reference Fu Tsong had sited and read Othello’s lines aloud:

“I had rather be a toad,

And live upon the vapour of a dungeon

Than keep a corner in the thing I love

For others’ uses.”

Fong allowed that to seep into him as Fu Tsong had taught him to do. Then he checked another of her citations at the bottom of the page – Act IV, Scene II, line 60 – Othello says:

“Where either I must live or bear no life,

The fountain from the which my current runs

Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!

Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads

To knot and gender in!”

Fong then looked at Fu Tsong’s comment beside these lines: This guy really has a thing about toads. Toads “gendering” together. He should have this checked by a specialist and soon.

Fong found his hand touching her words on the page and a profound sadness descended upon him. He had managed to forget that about her. She had been funny. So very funny.

He flipped the page and was confronted with a long section of Fu Tsong’s writing that seemed to have no reference to particular lines: We all die. Some are taken by time and care. Others by a murderer’s hands. But are we never the cause of our own demise? Even of our own murder? Can life never get so horrid, the pain of living so great – that death is the better way? That the pain of the here and now is greater than any fear of the hereafter.

It is my job as an actress to make the most compelling character that I possibly can within the constraints of keeping away from eccentricity. A character that is lost in the darkness is less compelling than one that sits in the light. Let us grant whatever possible knowledge Desdemona could have and work from that point.

Is it possible that Desdemona is in so much pain that she causes her own death?

Is it possible that her love for Othello is so profound that there is almost none of herself left when she is with him – that it would be better to die than be so consumed by her love for him? Is it possible that Desdemona is as frightened of her love for Othello as I am of my love for Fong?

When he looked up he could hardly see. He knew he was crying but he didn’t know when his tears had started. He brushed them aside and was surprised to see Tuan Li standing over him. He didn’t know what to do – so he apologized.

“For what?” asked Tuan Li. “You are Fu Tsong’s husband, yes?”

He nodded. She held out a handkerchief. He took it and wiped away his tears then went to hand it back but didn’t know if that was proper. The scent from the handkerchief was on his face.

“Is that her copy of the play?” she asked tentatively and reached for her handkerchief.

“One of them,” he said.

“Did the great Fu Tsong like this play?”

“She did. Very much, although she had many questions about it, but then again she had many questions about all the plays she acted in.”

“What troubled her most about Desdemona?”

“The woman’s belief in being saved. I don’t think she ever found the equivalent in herself to the Christian concept of being saved.”

“It is very un-Chinese that idea.”

Fong nodded.

“Do you understand it?”

“No,” Fong said.

Tuan Li smiled sadly at him and said, “Perhaps that is why you are so alone.”

Fong didn’t follow that and was about to say so when Tuan Li was called back to the stage.

Fong watched her and her Othello work the entirety of the scene again. This time Tuan Li took volition and defended herself brilliantly against Othello’s attack. But Fong noticed Tuan Li doing something that Fu Tsong had often talked about. He recalled Fu Tsong’s words: “This is not realism, Fong. That’s life. Plays are done in naturalism, that’s art. In realism people deflect anything dangerous that comes at them. It becomes the reason why when I attack you, only later do you think, I should have said this to Fu Tsong or that to Fu Tsong. It is because you weren’t able to stay present during my completely justifiable attacks on your person. You are a civilian after all dear husband. But I am not. I am an artist and I am paid to stay in present tense. Hence I can never deflect anything. Every awful thing you say to me goes in and hurts. That’s how naturalism works. It is the strength of the heart of the actress that allows her to honestly accept the attack, fall, then rise like the phoenix to fight again. Artists exist solely to share their knowledge of the heart – and what an artist does to her heart by forcing it to stay present is as unnatural as what a ballet dancer does to her body.”

Fong turned to the stage and there he saw Tuan Li’s Desdemona doing precisely what Fu Tsong had told him an artist’s job was – accepting the pain of each sledgehammer blow from her Othello, even allowing the possibility that Othello was speaking truths, then falling, then rising to fight again.

Fong wondered where this strength came from. He would have been astounded to hear Tuan Li’s answer to that question: “Faith,” she would have said, “Faith, dear Fong.”

The director stepped forward but before he could open his mouth Tuan Li put a finger to her lips. For the first time in Fong’s memory a Chinese rehearsal room went dead quiet. Tuan Li stared at her Othello and he met her gaze. She was clearly challenging him to find the book upon her features, the pages on which were written the word: Whore. For the barest second Othello faltered beneath the challenge then he turned and spat directly in Tuan Li’s face.

The men in the audience leapt to their feet but Tuan Li didn’t move. She accepted the insult, fell inside herself, then rose and withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve.

It was only then that Fong saw that it was not the handkerchief that Othello had demanded that she produce. The rest of the audience saw it too and realized that they had been drawn into a clever trap that allowed the play to ratchet up the tension to yet a higher level.

As so often in the presence of art, Fong felt full but humble. He knew he was not capable of fulfilling an artistic endeavour himself but he was grateful, so grateful that there are those who could lead him through the heart’s dark corridors.

The touch of Lily’s hand on his shoulder shocked him back to the present. He snuck a peak at his wristwatch. He had been in the theatre for more than three hours. “My cell phone didn’t ring,” he said.

“I’m not here, Fong, because the office called,” Lily said simply.

After a beat Fong asked, “Why are you here, Lily?”

“No, Fong. The question is why are you here and not at home?”

Fong looked at the stage. Iago had just come on from stage right. Othello pecked Tuan Li on the cheek. She openly mouthed “Good luck” in reference to Iago then walked right past the British actor without acknowledging his presence.

Iago approached Othello with his hand extended. “No hard feelings, I hope.”

Othello took Iago’s hand and held it tight. “Lie better, Gummer. Lie better and don’t ever let me catch you lying. ’Cause you know this play isn’t about a dumb . . .”

Iago hesitated and finally completed Othello’s phrase with the words, “ . . . person whose parentage was at one time native to the African continent.”

“Yeah, that.”

“Well, after all, it’s only a paper moon, isn’t it?”

“Moon looks damn real to me.”

Iago went to speak but no words came out of his mouth.

“What’s that all about?” Lily asked.

“Art,” Fong replied.

Lily didn’t know what to say to that. She shrugged it off and asked again, “What are you doing here, Fong?”

“Watching toads gender each other,” he said.

“Fong!”

“Lily,” Fong said, turning to her, “I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I know I need to be here. I know it.”

Lily sat back in her seat surprised by the intensity of his response. Finally she said, “You are married Fong. You are married to me, not to Fu Tsong.”

Fong heard the hurt in her voice. She had accepted the pain but had not been able to rise to respond. She had answered while still falling. “I know Lily, I do . . . I just need a little more time.”

“To do what?” Lily demanded.

“I don’t know, Lily. Honestly, I don’t know.”

When Fong arrived home two hours later he wasn’t surprised to find the bedroom door locked to him. The baby wasn’t in her crib. She must have been in the bed with Lily.

Fong stared at the empty crib and then reached in and picked up Xiao Ming’s baby blanket.

He was surprised, when he was awakened at 4 a.m. by the sharp ring of his telephone, that he was clutching the baby blanket to his chest.