David Rotenberg - The Lake Ching murders

Fong noticed the delicate way Dr. Roung handled the bronze and thought he saw a subtle further fall in the man’s features. He resisted the impulse to reach into his own pocket and touch Chu Shi’s statuette. Then he thought about “potential insurrection” – and a rogue in Beijing.

“Of course, Qin Shi Huang’s achievements required huge taxes and hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million, forced labourers. We are sure that more than seven hundred thousand artisans and workers worked on the tomb for thirty-six years. But on some level it was worth it, don’t you think?” The archeologist turned toward the lines of soldiers in the pit. Fong followed his gaze. “A creation that withstands the very movement of time.”

Fong found it both beautiful and appalling. An achievement, no doubt. But at what cost? Over seven hundred thousand lives dedicated to what? Fong felt Dr. Roung’s cold hand on his shoulder again. “Let’s not start here. I think I know how you would best be introduced to my terra-cotta warriors, Zhong Fong.”

With that, he flicked off the switch and the place went ghostly dark.

Fong followed the archeologist out of the building and down a back alley. The night air was quick and chilled. A desert night. Fong found himself happy that Dr. Roung was setting a fast pace in his walk.

They moved through the silent dark for more than half an hour before the man stopped in front of a large, corrugated metal building. He pulled out a set of industrial keys and opened the sheet-metal door. The interior smelled of things old and dusty. Then Dr. Roung hit the light switch. No soft folding light here. High-intensity overhead beams turned night into a glaring day. And brought to life a tableau of a world in pitched battle between birth and decay.

Fong stepped forward without invitation. The huge space was littered with partially completed terra-cotta warriors. Many seemed as if they were trying to rise from the dust, pulling limbs still caught by the very time of the Earth. Others lay on their sides as if arms and parts of legs were being sucked down into the ground. Then heaps of body parts. And finally, a pile twice Fong’s height and maybe twenty feet wide of stacked heads. Some looking wistfully toward the harsh light as if the false sun could rejuvenate their long-lost lives, while others were bidding their final adieus to a cruel world.

Fong turned and saw the archeologist sitting at a large glass-topped table. On the surface were thousands of shards of fired clay. Dr. Roung moved his hands above the pieces as he had done with the shredded bits of map in his office. Even in the cold light, Fong couldn’t deny the beauty of the man’s arched back and long tapered fingers. The man’s left hand reached out and snatched a piece from the table and snapped it perfectly into place with another piece that was by his side. He turned to Fong, a simple smile on his face.

“This man is happy here,” Fong thought. “He should never have ventured out of doors.”

“There are millions of pieces yet to be fitted.” That seemed an immensely pleasing fact to the archeologist. “Each of the pits was covered by a heavy wooden roof. They all collapsed. From the char marks, we surmise that they were burned. Probably by the rebels who ended the Qin Dynasty’s short-lived rule. Well, the roof beams smashed all the figures. The kneeling ones, often archers, were least damaged. Things were in pieces, you might say. Beijing called on my services. No. They needed my services.” He nodded at Fong, “As they have now called on your services.” Fong nodded back.

“We call this place the fitting room – apt, don’t you think.” He pushed back his seat and crossed to a computer on a side table. As he typed he said, “Every piece is coded. Each side of each piece carries a sub-code. When we find a match we enter it in the computer and the computer helps find similar shards that might fit what we now have. But the final fitting can’t be done by machine. It needs a human hand. It needs talent.” He finished his entry and looked at Fong. Then he raised a single finger and pointed to a side room.

Fong followed.

In the room was a fully completed figure. Naked. Partially painted. “We use a glue made from sharks’ lungs to keep any flakes of the original paint in place. Then we make old-style pigments from minerals and bind them with animal blood and egg white. Charcoal is used to tint the hair, hemp for soles of the shoes and braided hair for the archers. The torsos and limbs are generic; there are thirty-two different styles, but the faces are unique. No two match. Of all the mysteries here, and yes, Fong, there are some extremely interesting mysteries here, the fact that Qin Shi Huang went to the trouble of giving each soldier an individual face stands out as most interesting to me. Of course, that’s just my opinion. Others find the seven unidentified skeletons more interesting. Personally, I assume that they were the emperor’s children. Some people find the fact that in the great pit there are two generals most interesting. I don’t. I find it very Chinese. Grant neither full power. Make both go through the emperor. Balance the power between the two to keep each in check – very Chinese.”

“In boxes,” Fong thought.

“I have something else to show you.”

The man headed toward the far door. Fong followed. This time they entered the night air only briefly before Dr. Roung opened the door of a late model Toyota Santana and told Fong to climb in. They drove. The wind was full of desert sand. A cold scraping eternity. They had left the tourist’s Xian behind and were racing along a dirt road.

Then they were in country.

Twenty minutes later Dr. Roung pulled the car to the side of the road and took a large flashlight from the glove compartment.

They began to walk. The night was getting colder. The wind abated and, overhead, Fong saw the brilliant desert night sky again. Fong was tiring. Late nights were no longer simple for him. He was about to request a stop when Dr. Roung crested a hill and pointed his flashlight at one of the oddest sights in China – a very large, empty plot of arable land.

Fong didn’t need to be told what this was. He sensed the presence of the dead all around him. Huge numbers of them. Buried here. One atop another. Squashed side to side like eels on a cutting table. “The workers?” he asked, already knowing the answer to his question.

“Very good, Fong. There may be in excess of seven hundred thousand bodies buried here.”

“Not nearly so lavish as the tomb of Qin Shi Huang!” Fong spat out.

“True, Fong, but are all lives really worthy of royal tombs – of immortality?”

That sense of falling came from the man at his side again. The sense of loss. Fong thought of Captain Chen’s confusion about justice. Fong had been unmistakably moved by the achievement of the Qin emperor’s tomb. But was the emperor’s life really worth that much more than the lives of all those who worked on the enterprise?

Again the archeologist put a hand on Fong’s shoulder – so personal. So un-Chinese. “Two million visitors a year come to the terra-cotta warriors. The foreigners love it. We bake little replicas for them and they pay a fortune for the worthless things. That’s a lot of money coming into the country. Some claim that the warriors are the number one tourist attraction in the world.” Dr. Roung removed his hand and began to laugh, to cackle. “Personally, I’m interested in seeing Disneyland.”

Fong turned toward the braying sound. The archeologist’s face was dark; confusion and loss vied for prominence on his features.

“But our emperor did not meet an end any better than those seven hundred thousand souls buried out there, Fong. He died at forty-nine, after only eleven years of power.” The man chuckled again, a hoarse, angry laugh. “Do you know how he died?”