David Rotenberg - The Lake Ching murders

“No, how?”

“Naked on a mountain top. Howling at the moon. He’d got it into his head that there was an elixir of life. A fountain of eternal youth.” A truly ghastly laugh exploded from the man’s face. A line of spittle crept from the corner of his mouth. “China’s first emperor, perhaps the most powerful man the world had ever seen, sent his scholars out to find it. The whole of China was turned upside down in Qin Shi Huang’s desperate effort to stop growing old, to defeat time itself. Thousands were executed when the substances they produced for the emperor had no effect. Finally, he was told of a mountain peak, a holy mountain. He climbed it with a single trusted serving man. Once they got to the top, the faithful retainer was sent down. They found the emperor the next morning, naked, clutching a stone to his groin – frozen to death.”

Dr. Roung moved away, but Fong stayed where he was and drank it all in. A cold night. Seven hundred thousand buried souls to one side and the image of a mad emperor seeking the elixir of life on the other. Parallel patterns. His teeth clacked. They hadn’t done that for a while. A surge of anger went through him and in his heart he knew what this was all about. What bound it all together – the elixir of life. Staying young. Fighting against the inevitable. That’s what was in the islanders’ DNA. That’s why the foreigners want the patent. That’s why Hesheng had been given a name that means “in this year of peace” despite the fact that he only looked to be in his twenties. Why there were so few graves in the island’s cemetery, why Iman couldn’t remember the words for the prayer to the dead, why the foreigners were so anxious to get accurate family histories from the islanders: from the farmers who were thought never to intermarry, but not from the fishermen who did. The islanders’ DNA – the elixir of life.

From the missing piece he had deduced the whole.

He turned to the archeologist, “What’s your given name, sir?”

“Chen. My science degree permits me to use the title doctor. So I am Dr. Roung Chen.”

Fong laughed.

“What?”

“Chen is a common name, a very common name for one so unique.”

That night Fong wandered the deserted Xian streets alone. Visions of visions cascaded in his head. Seven hundred thousand bodies crammed in burial. Soldiers ready to attack, frozen in eternal stillness by the rising light. Seven unidentified corpses. Two generals kept apart from each other. Time itself standing still.

Then there was a shuffling of feet. Fong turned and somehow he was in pit #1 of the terra-cotta warriors. Before he could understand what was happening to him he sensed movement through the rank upon rank of clay soldiers in the pit. And colour. Then a shout. Someone shouting his name. Ordering him.

Fong moved past a kneeling archer and ran down a row of mounted cavalrymen.

And there he was.

Qin Shi Huang, dressed just as he was in the famous woodcut. On his head sat a rectangular, lacquered piece of hide from which hung silk strands – a dozen behind, a dozen in front. Each strand was strung with exquisite jade beads. His dark upper garment was of an almost blue-black silk. His voluminous sleeves were embroidered – light on the outside but dark as blood on the interior. The elaborate frontpiece was held in place by a white jade belt over an obi-like silk sash from which the jade handle of his sword protruded. Below the belt were silk skirts in several layers of light red that just exposed the tips of his wooden platform sandals. Fong vaguely remembered that the entirety of what the emperor wore was called Mian Fu. Both the name and the clothing style went back to the Xi Zhou people in the eleventh century BC.

“We’ve made it.”

The man’s gruff voice shocked Fong. The accent was unidentifiable.

“Help me off with this,” he said indicating the broad obi-like sash around his waist.

Fong was frightened to touch the illusion lest it return to nothingness.

“Hurry, the light fades and I must be prepared.”

Fong undid the white jade belt and put it on the ground. It was surprisingly heavy. Then he reached behind the emperor and untied the thin belt that kept the sash in place. The garment slid through his fingers with a silken whisper. The emperor bowed his head and Fong undid the straps and removed the headpiece, the Tong Tian, being careful not to snag the long ribbon attached to it that is supposed to connect the emperor to heaven.

A brisk wind picked up. Fong shivered. He looked around him. He was on the crest of a high rugged peak, timeless China down below.

The emperor stared into the distance. Fong knew that Qin Shi Huang was actually his own age although he looked ancient as the rock.

With a huge sigh, the emperor sat heavily on the cold ground and lifted a foot. Fong found the delicate straps and snaps and freed the emperor’s feet from the raised platform sandals. Then he slipped off the silk socks. The emperor’s feet were severely arthritic; the joints were swollen or broken and his toes splayed in odd crushed patterns. His toenails were extremely thick and deeply yellowed from fungal growth.

The emperor lifted his upper garment over his shoulders revealing a sunken chest and sparse growth of greying hair, narrowing to a single line that ran from his navel downward.

Qin Shi Huang stood and turned to Fong. Clearly Fong was to undo the ribbons that held the emperor’s lower skirts in place. He hesitated. His eyes were at the emperor’s waist. He glanced up, aware of what this looked like. But the emperor was once again staring deep into the far-off.

Fong unlaced the ribbons. The emperor’s skirts fell away. Before him, nestled in a bed of grey pubic hair, the man’s penis looked at him like a one-eyed eel, frightened of the world.

“Cover him.”

Fong whipped around. Dr. Roung was there holding a round flat stone, almost the size of a dinner plate.

“Cover him, Fong!”

The archeologist held out the stone. Fong took it. It was heavy and dropped to the ground with a thud.

“Pick it up.”

This voice was different. Familiar but different. Fong looked up. Iman stood there, Jiajia at his side.

“Pick it up, Fong.”

This voice was high, lisping. It came from his left. It was the politico.

Fong picked up the stone. It was suddenly light as the finest porcelain. He handed it to the emperor.

The old man took the stone and turned away – toward the east.

Fong turned back.

There was no one there. Nothing there. Then he looked to the emperor. He too was gone.

Of course.

At the end there is only ourselves – and what we know – and time which knows everything but tells us so very little.

Fong’s phone call to Lily in Ching was brief and to the point. She listened quietly – in shock – then began asking questions. Each one a better question than the one before. Then she, albeit shakily, agreed.

“How long do we have, Fong?” she asked.

“Say, four hours. I’ve got to get him and then haul him back. Does that give you enough time?”

“We’ll make it enough.” As she hung up the phone she was surprised to realize that she was excited. No. Thrilled.

Dr. Roung Chen didn’t bother rising as Fong pushed his way past the secretary and into the archeologist’s Xian office. The man looked awful.

Tough.

“Let’s go.”

“Where to?”

“Back.”

“To what?”

“Not to Disneyland, Dr. Roung. To Lake Ching. You may recall there was a mass murder there – on a boat.” The man was so flustered that he didn’t notice Fong reach over and palm a small object from his desk. They drove for three hours in absolute silence. “Maybe just as Captain Chen had on that frigid night over four months ago with the specialist,” Fong thought. But Fong didn’t linger on the thought. There was still something missing from the puzzle. A final link that connected the pieces he had to the rogue in Beijing – which in turn pointed his way back home to Shanghai. And Fong was aware that without the connection to the rogue in Beijing everything he knew was as useless as the bits of paper vomited from the shredding machine in the archeologist’s office.