Nury Vittachi: The Feng Shui Detective

Joyce thanked her with a smile and a nod. She looked at the salty-sweet drink and half-consciously began to realise how much she had changed in the past few weeks. She had eaten and drunk all sorts of strange things. And spent time with so many odd people. And helped crack criminal cases! And seen corpses. And been to Malaysia and Hong Kong, and India and Vietnam. And discovered a secret passageway in a Buddhist monastery.

And learned a bit of feng shui. She knew that a sheer cliff near a lake or the sea in the west was a ‘mountain star falling into water’. She knew that a semi-circle of mountains was an embracing road, a dragon’s lair. She knew that the Chien Kua was one of the Four West Houses. She knew that the numbers part of feng shui was based on the markings on a turtle’s shell seen several thousand years ago. She knew that soil ch’i damages water ch’i, and you need to place metal ch’i between them. She knew that soil-metal-water was the support cycle of the Later Heaven. She knew that things had their rightful places. She knew that it was important to arrange even the smallest things properly, because only then could larger objects find their correct space. She knew that things had unseen effects on other things. She knew that only when everything was in its right place did lasting harmony flow into a community.

One of the VCDs slipped from her hand, but she didn’t pick it up. She lifted the salty-sweet liquid to her lips, and took another sip. It was still disgusting.

By nine, the sun was high. Wong was sitting in Master Tran’s office. The chief monk was an old but sprightly man. His head was not fuzzy and shaven like those of his colleagues, but had the smooth hairlessness of advanced age. His skin was sun-browned and he had thick knuckles, like walnuts, on each gnarled hand.

Wong went through the details of his feng shui redesign in as much detail as time would allow. The head of the temple listened politely, and looked at the notes he had been handed. He then asked several questions, which were intelligent enough to show the geomancer that he took the business seriously.

Then Master Tran put the papers to one side. ‘ Merci bien. You have done well, and I have much to thank you for. Can I not persuade you to stay for lunch?’

‘I cannot. We have plane to catch.’ Wong looked down at his feet. ‘Master Tran, there is one more thing I have to tell you. There was a little problem this morning.’

‘I understand,’ said the old man. ‘You were caught in flagrante.’

‘No. I was in the sleeping room with my assistant. She is not a man.’

‘That’s what I meant.’

‘Oh. Yes. But let me explain. We discovered a route for smuggling things into the Vihara. A sort of opening in the wall. A tunnel in the roof space. I have marked the route on this map. You can see it. Decide what to do with it.’ The geomancer pulled another diagram from his file and placed it on the table. ‘You can block it. You will stop people bringing wrong things in. Also there is an escape of ch’i energy there. It acts as door in the northeast. Not good here. The ch’i of the northeast is cold. Cutting ch’i. Behaves in unpredictable way.’

‘CF, everything is unpredictable. If there is one thing I have learned in my life, that is it.’

Wong looked the old priest in the eye. ‘I must explain you something about last night. The reason girl was in my room. She was testing the route. This route which we discovered. She could not go back. It was too dark. She does not like rats. You have many rats. There was no other reason for her stay in my room. I slept on floor. I have witnesses.’

‘You certainly do have witnesses. You do not need to tell me all this. A monastery is the one place where gossip travels even faster than among shop women in a marketplace. None of this matters.’ The old man smiled.

‘But secret tunnel. This is an important discovery, no?’

‘To be honest, C F, no. We have known about that for years. I have sent junior brothers in and out through the hole myself if I needed some urgent supplies of something or other. I got someone to bring me a superb bottle of Taylor ’s 1975 last year. For my health, of course. Would you like a drop now…? No, okay.’

Wong needed a few seconds to ingest this information. ‘You knew about secret tunnel? Brother Wasuran said someone bring cigarettes and video machine in. And monks wanting to leave. These were problems, yes?’

‘Ye-es,’ said Master Tran slowly. He clasped his hands over his stomach. ‘This is true. But you have to understand how life works here. It is on a different scale to life in your busy-busy Singapore. Everything happens a bit more slowly. Yes, there was a case of cigarettes discovered, let me see, that was in 1988. And the video machine? That was discovered about five or six years ago, in the mid-90s. It was not really a big problem. You see, we have no television and no electricity, and I understand a video player needs both these things to work. These little incidents stick in the brothers’ heads because they are rare. We live a quiet life.’

‘So smuggling items not a big problem. But it is a feng shui problem. Changes flow of ch’i.’

‘I’m sure it does, and for that reason, it was good that you discovered that route and incorporated it into your report.’

‘Why you invite me here? What was the problem you want fixed?’

‘There was one particular problem, but it was a more general one. And it is one that you have already solved. Thank you.’

‘Gift of feng shui is given me by Heaven. Am happy to share with you.’

Master Tran moved over to a sideboard and took out a bottle of port. ‘Don’t mind if I have one, do you? C F, you have helped in ways that perhaps even you do not realise. For example, the fact that you were accompanied by your attractive girlfriend-’

‘Assistant.’

‘I’m sorry, your assistant, has had a very interesting effect on the men. And not a negative one. She is an interesting person, Brother Wasuran tells me. He had a chat with her before you went off to Porntip’s house for breakfast. It is always interesting to see something from another person’s point of view, particularly if that person is very different from oneself. It broadens the horizons. This is particularly important in something as closed as this monastery, where we don’t go out and mix much.’

‘My temporary assistant,’ added Wong. Tran’s words reminded him of his journal, part 73, his philosophy about the size of a person’s world. Only when you meet someone who doesn’t fit into your world is there an opportunity to make your world bigger. He had to admit, his dreadful assistant’s different point of view had proved slightly useful in a few cases. There had been many difficult times, but her impact had not been entirely negative in certain cases, he had to admit. Last night was a typical example. She had got him into the most awful trouble, yet at the same time, she solved one of the feng shui problems of the Vihara by discovering the secret passage. His reading would have been disastrously incomplete if she had not found the unofficial northeastern opening to the enclosure.

Master Tran returned to the table. ‘Your feng shui readings are greatly appreciated. We will attempt to implement as many of your suggestions as we can. I am quite sure they will have a beneficial effect on the temple. But let me tell you how your visit has really helped us.’

The old man looked out of the window of the dark room at the men, who were travelling across the yard to gather at the bo tree for a ritual.

‘This is a Zen Buddhist temple. Our work deals with the inner peace of the soul as well as the outer peace of the body. I have become aware over the past year or so that there has been some loss of faith here, some general disillusionment. Some of the brothers were getting curious about life outside, about the modern world, about women. This is natural. Naturally they were intrigued by your visit with a young woman.’