Nury Vittachi - The Feng Shui Detective

The slick young man who had spoken to Joyce earlier approached the three as soon as they stepped away from the queue. ‘Wai. Mut-yeh si?’

‘Ngoh-ge chaang maih-jo,’ said Wong, with a pained expression on his face. ‘Di-yi-di chaang fung shui mm-ho, ngoh lum. Mo baan faat. ’

‘Mo ban fat,’ repeated Joyce, trying to look tough, as befits an experienced moll.

With a dismissive toss of his head, the young triad let them leave, and the three climbed into a waiting taxi to head back to the urban area.

‘Phew. Thank God we are out of there. What do we do now?’ asked Joyce, as the vehicle slipped onto the main road. ‘This is a major scam. Shouldn’t we like report it to the police or something?’

‘Already did,’ said Wong. ‘Used a phone on site. Before I came back.’

As they proceeded towards Shatin, three squad cars raced past the taxi, and turned, tyres squealing in the best Hollywood tradition, into the approach road that led to the site.

‘Do you think they will catch them?’ asked Joyce. ‘Won’t they try and escape round the back or something?’

‘Yes,’ said Wong. ‘I think they will try that. They will take the money box. They will use the road that goes to the southeast in the direction of the dragon. I told the police to put a road block there. So I think it is no problem.’

Au-yeung remained sitting frozen with his briefcase in his arms, stunned by the turn of events. ‘I almost lost you, my poor baby,’ he cooed to his savings.

‘Does this mean you are not going to buy a flat after all and we can go on holiday now?’ asked Joyce.

Au-yeung, in shock, did not answer.

‘Yes, I think so,’ said Wong. ‘I think he will not let go of that bag. For a long time.’

‘Can we like, go to the beach or something now?’

‘Yes. But first, I think we go and have breakfast in the Peninsula hotel.’

‘I thought we couldn’t afford it.’

‘I sold our place in the queue to man behind us,’ said the geomancer. ‘He gave me 3000 Hong Kong dollars. I think it is enough.’

The taxi picked up speed as they topped a hill and row after row of glittering towers beckoned them.

The sages of ancient days tell this story. There was a poor Taoist priest. He walked on the paths between the mountains. He lived on air and on river water and on what he was given.

One day he came to the village pear-seller. The village pear-seller had more than one hundred pears in his barrow.

‘Give me one please,’ said the priest.

‘No. You must pay like other people,’ said the pear-seller. ‘Go away.’

But the priest did not leave.

The man became angry. The people standing near said: ‘Give him a small one. Or a bad one. Then he will go.’

The pear-seller said: ‘No.’

Now a crowd had gathered.

The chief of the village came. He paid for a pear. He gave it to the poor priest. The priest said thank you. He said: ‘People like me give up everything. We give up life, family, money, homes, possessions. We cannot understand the minds of those who give up nothing.’

The people asked the priest: ‘Yes, you give up much. But what do you get?’

The priest said: ‘Many things. For example, I have many beautiful pear trees, each with hundreds of delicious pears.’

The people asked: ‘Where are they?’

The priest said: ‘In here.’ He pointed to the pear in his hand. Then he ate the pear. He took out the pips. He buried them in the ground. He asked for some water. He sprinkled the water on the ground. A stick came out of the ground. Then it became a tree. Then leaves came on the branches. Then pears came out of the branches.

‘Take. Eat,’ said the priest. The people took and ate the pears. The priest said goodbye and left the village.

The tree faded. It disappeared. The pear-seller looked back at his barrow. But all his pears had gone.

So, Blade of Grass, remember that he who is wealthy in riches is often poor in spirit. He who is poor in wealth is often rich in spirit.

From ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’

by C F Wong, part 116.

‘Ah, my prayers have been answered: a meeting of the mystics on a Friday night. We haven’t had a Friday-night meeting for a very, very long time.’ Madam Xu Chung Li radiated glee at her companions before taking a small towel out of her handbag and wiping the table, employing particular vigour on the areas directly in front of her and the other female present. These efforts had no visible effect on the table surface, but her observers assumed the gesture was symbolic.

‘Why d’you like meeting on Fridays?’ asked Joyce.

‘Well, dear, Friday is a very special night at the Sambar,’ the old fortune teller whispered confidentially, pursing her crimson lips to create a network of lines pointing the way into her mouth. ‘It’s the night old Uberoi makes string hoppers. Only place in Singapore where you can get them, to my knowledge.’

‘Oh.’ The young woman decided against asking what a string hopper was, not wanting to appear a tourist.

It was a comparatively cool evening at the open-fronted restaurant where they sat on Serangoon Road, after a day of wind and rain. A week of heavy, humid, oppressive weather had turned the population into slugs, and the sudden cloudburst of the mid-morning had brought welcome relief. It had rained intermittently all day, but had conveniently stopped at 6.30 p.m., allowing a northeast zephyr to blow the open-air seats and tables at the restaurant dry just in time for the 8 p.m. meeting of the Investigative Advisory Committee of the Singapore Union of Industrial Mystics.

Joyce had arrived early to make the most of her first visit to Singapore ’s Little India. She had stopped at the Temple of 1000 Lights, and then spent a happy hour perusing the shops on Serangoon Road. She bought some Punjabi clothes, a movie poster showing overweight actors from Madras, some Tamil music tapes and a whole bag full of Indian brass jewellery. Her shopping bags had soon become heavy, and she was glad when the time came to slide them under the table at the Sambar Coffee House.

She watched Madam Xu expend a great deal of energy rubbing at a dark circle on the table, and wondered whether she should tell her that it was a knot in the wood, not removable by anything less than a power saw.

The elderly fortune teller eventually gave up by herself. She foraged further in her handbag-a large, burgundy leather sack with gold clasps-and pulled out another towel, a small, flowered flannel, scented with patchouli. She delicately touched her forehead and upper lip with it. The evening was becoming balmy, and warm air was flowing out of the kitchen door, which was propped open. The smell of fried cumin pervaded the street.

Someone flicked a switch and a fan started to whirl lazily on the ceiling above them, sending down fluttering waves of tepid air. Joyce felt as if someone was gently stroking the top of her head.

‘Ng, chat, saam, yee, lok, sei, baat. ’ C F Wong mumbled to himself as he sat on the edge of the table, filling in numbers on a chart he had brought with him. ‘Yat gau-gau gau.’

Madam Xu tutted unhappily. ‘You have a lot of work? Can’t even take a break on a Friday night, C F, when string hoppers are on the menu?’

‘Yes, Xu-tai, have much work today.’ The old man’s hand seemed to vibrate as he drew tiny Chinese characters over a floor plan.

The fortune teller turned back to the geomancer’s young assistant. ‘While we’re waiting for the Super, shall I just read your palm, my dear?’

‘Er. Yeah. Whatever. I, like-’ said Joyce, nervously dropping her hands into her lap. Then she looked into the distance and broke into an involuntary smile. ‘There’s not enough time. Look, he’s here.’