David Rotenberg - The Hua Shan Hospital Murders

The men protested loudly but didn’t bother reaching for the scroll. That sealed it. If the scroll were even remotely valuable they would have snatched it back from him. But they didn’t. They just made noise.

“Enough.” His voice cut through the babble of complaint. The men stopped and stared at him. Chinese were loud-spoken by nature but were always surprised when a Westerner raised his voice. Robert chuckled to himself. Just an old trick – raising the voice – but a good one. He put out his hand and whispered to his translator, “Don’t translate this.” He bowed slightly to the men, tilting water from his umbrella as he did so, put the fake scroll back in his briefcase – never know when a fake could come in handy – and smiling, yet again, said, “Fuck you very much.” Then he added, “See you a year from Simchas Torah.” He looked at his translator and inquired, “Don’t know how to translate that, do you?”

She smiled back and said, “No, Mr. Cowens, I don’t.”

“Good,” he said, “how ’bout lunch before we meet the next set of charlatans?” She nodded, dismissed the Chinese men, and led the way, unaware that Robert momentarily lingered – his eyes glued to the window high up the Bund building from which Silas Darfun had ruled an empire and perhaps ruined Robert’s life.

Forked lightning snapped into being above the building. Robert smiled and said under his breath, “Devil Robert’s closing in on you, you old fuck.”

Lily stood by their rain-streaked apartment window that overlooked the courtyard on the grounds of the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Xiao Ming was lying on a blanket to one side. Usually at this hour the baby was with Lily’s mother, but because it was the first Monday of the month the old woman had to attend her building’s party meeting.

Fong stood across the room from Lily, waiting.

“I’m sorry, Fong.”

“Don’t be, Lily.”

“It just – I just put my hand into the mud and – it surprised me.”

Fong looked at his strong-willed wife and wondered at the change in her since she’d given birth to Xiao Ming.

“I understand, Lily. I really do,” he said opening his arms to her. She moved toward him and allowed him to pull her close. She snuggled into the hard body of her middle-aged husband knowing that he really didn’t understand.

He held her to him knowing that she knew that he didn’t really understand.

She pecked him on the cheek, handed him a photograph, and returned to the window. Then she turned and addressed him like a dim-witted student, “Think time, Fong,” she announced in her personal variant of the English language. She indicated the photograph in his hand and the empty vertical space to the left of the window and said, “It beautiful fits here, Fong.”

For an instant Fong recalled a similar translation error on a sign in a major Nanjing Lu department store. The small plaque outside the lady’s dressing rooms had said in English, “Women have fits here.” He smiled, then looked away.

“Nothing’s funny here, Fong,” Lily snapped reverting to her beautiful Shanghanese. “It’s a rare find. Totally unique.” Then to add a practical justification she added, “And just the right size.” Fong didn’t care about the latter. But Lily was right. The central figure of the stone piece was exquisite.

“No!” Fong said too loudly, then put the photograph back on top of the others on the table.

Lily folded her arms across her chest. “Why?”

“Because I’d be uncomfortable with it, Lily,” said Fong, anxious not to know why he was resisting.

“But why, Fong? Give me a reason,” Lily demanded.

Before he could reply, Xiao Ming began to cry. The baby seemed to sense even the slightest tension between her parents. The smallest disagreement was met with angry wails of protest. It confused Fong.

Lily reached down and picked up Xiao Ming. Fong stared at the image of his wife and baby. Lily was never so beautiful as when she pulled aside her blouse and, releasing a breast, suckled their daughter. Beautiful, but somehow distant – somehow complete without him. That confused him too.

As the child sucked happily – her tiny, slender fingers and soft palms cupping her mother’s breast – Fong picked up the photograph of the ancient fresco. The single standing male with his arms up, palms toward the heavens, dominated the piece. The man’s features were partially obscured but clearly they were not Han Chinese.

“Where did you get it, Lily?”

“Think of it as a riddle, Fong.”

“What?”

“A riddle. Figure it out.”

“You’re the one who’s good at riddles Lily, not me.”

“True. Have you heard this one, Fong? No one at my lab could solve it.”

“Lily . . .” This too confused him. When had his wife become enamoured of riddles? What was next – jokes?

“Okay. Listen carefully, Fong. Ready?” Fong nodded. “Good. Okay. Here it is. A man and his son are in a terrible car accident. The father is instantly killed and the boy is badly hurt. He is rushed to the hospital and right into the operating room. The surgeon comes running in, takes one look at the boy and screams: My son! Now, Fong, how can the surgeon be the boy’s father when the boy’s father died in the car crash?”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the riddle?”

“Yes.”

“Not much of a riddle, Lily. Obviously the surgeon is not the boy’s father – the surgeon is the boy’s mother.”

Lily looked at him, disappointed.

“Is that right, Lily?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now answer my little riddle. Where did you get the photographs of the frescos?”

The baby released Lily’s nipple, looked at her father, then rolled back to her previous position. Lily grimaced as the baby bit down hard.

Lily looked at Fong. Her husband. Father to their baby. Her boss at Special Investigations. “I got them in the market.”

“From a Tibetan?’

“In fact, she was a Tibetan. A very cute Tibetan, Fong. I think you would have found her attractive.”

“Lily-”

“Fong, everything here belonged to you and Fu Tsong. Even this apartment was hers. It’s in the Shanghai Theatre Academy because she was an actress here. I am not an actress, Fong. What am I doing here?” She threw up her arms and let out a sigh. “If we are going to stay here I need things that are mine – that belong to me – not her. That,” she said, pointing at the ancient fresco in the photograph, “will belong to me and I need it.”

Fong glanced out the window. It had stopped raining. Brilliant sunshine bathed the courtyard. A young inebriated student actor staggered across the courtyard singing loudly. Fong didn’t want to admit that he was past the point in his life of making a new home. Of shopping and selecting and caring for things. He was actually anxious to rid himself of possessions, and here his young wife was desperate to start collecting.

He didn’t know what to say.

The baby let go of Lily’s nipple with a slight plopping sound, then let out a loud fart. The sweet smell of baby poop filled the room.

That confused Fong as well.

“I’ve got to get back to the office,” Fong said.

“My mother’ll be back in half an hour. I’ll see you in forensics in about an hour.”

“Sure.”

He didn’t move to kiss her goodbye. He just stared at her and Xiao Ming – so complete – in and of themselves.

Angel Michael kept his eyes tightly shut through the last jagged edges of the pain. He waited until the tide of hurt ebbed far from the shore, then he opened his eyes. He was sitting alone, head bowed, in a brilliant pool of post-storm sunlight that streamed through the window of his room on the sixty-fifth floor of the Shanghai Metron Hotel. He turned to the light and watched it separate into its colours as it passed through a tiny imperfection in the glass pane. Putting out his hand, he allowed the rainbow to colour his skin. “This is the light revealed,” he said, then looked down at the coffee table in front of him. He carefully cracked the thin glass of the last of the old-fashioned flash bulbs from the pack. Then he sprinkled the phosphorus onto the polished surface. He looked at the chemical strands and said to the empty room, “Threads of light.”