S Rozan - Trail of Blood

“Supposed so, by we Chinese. To the Tibetans, it’s turquoise; for the Romans, it was opals. And diamonds are forever!” He waved his hand toward the shelves. “In a flood, my beautiful books are soaked to pulp. In fire, this desk, seven hundred years the support of scholars, is ash. You and I will one day be dust, though mine will form sooner and yours will be prettier. But your jade? The diamonds in this ring? They will not change! Burn them, drown them, bury them for a million years: immutable! Smash them to bits-each bit will still be pure: a tiny speck of diamond or jade. Everything changes, Ms. Chin. Water becomes sweet tea and then grows bitter as it steeps. There is no immortality for us. The nearest we can come is to be in the presence of gems.”

“Mr. Zhang, I have to repeat myself: You’re quite a poet.”

“And I repeat myself: It’s just the truth.”

“But isn’t that why Mr. Chen wants the Shanghai Moon? To touch that immortality?”

“My cousin’s search is for the Fountain of Youth: a very different obsession. My brother indulges him. Fools, the pair of them.”

Immortality and the Fountain of Youth: I wasn’t sure I saw such a great difference. “Fools,” I said, “but family. Mr. Chen’s assistant told me you sponsored them to come here.”

“As you say: family. That was forty years ago. I’d heard nothing from them in twenty years, since my father and I had left China. I didn’t even know if they still lived. Suddenly, from Shanghai, a letter! It brought greetings from my cousin, whom I had never met, and my brother, and wishes for my good health. It told of a storm fast approaching, to engulf all China in chaos and destruction. If possible”-the wry smile again-“my brother and cousin would prefer to ride out the storm in America. They asked for my help. Such was their good fortune that my father had recently died.”

“Why was that good fortune?”

“Sad to say, my father’s capacity for ill feeling increased as he aged.”

“But Zhang Li is his son.”

“And Mei-lin’s. And he and Loa-li were both raised by Kai-rong. My father and Kai-rong had not exactly brotherly feelings toward one another.”

“But not to help his own son because he didn’t like his brother-in-law?” That would take a very hard man. Suddenly, I had another thought. “General Zhang! Rosalie Gilder met him at a bookstore. It’s in her letters. He’s not-”

“My father? Yes. Shanghai society was a small and insular world. The book Rosalie found him was for Mei-lin. It was the beginning of their courtship.” He smiled. “I’ve read that letter. Rosalie took a fast dislike to him.”

“Oh, but I’m sure she wasn’t seeing his best side.”

“No, his everyday one. And for his part, he didn’t much care for Rosalie’s proud nature. Or her temper.”

“Was that part of the problem between your father and Kai-rong?”

His glance rested on the Shanghai photo. “Part of it, yes. But surely, Ms. Chin, we’re getting far afield from the reason you’ve come?”

Reluctantly, I said, “I suppose so. Your brother and your cousin-the storm was the Cultural Revolution?”

“They hadn’t been here six months when the first clouds burst. They’ve made new lives, but like so many, their hearts remained in China. In a China that ceased to exist. That’s the meaning of their search for the Shanghai Moon.” His smile grew sharper. “Beware, Ms. Chin.”

“Of what? The search is dangerous?”

“Not in the way you mean. Men have lost their lives in it, it’s true. But it’s a living death. No one’s seen the Shanghai Moon for sixty years, but everyone’s gotten word, gotten wind, everyone knows someone who’s heard from someone who saw something glitter in a dusty shop. They throw away their money and their time and in the end have nothing.”

“All those people over all these years, finding nothing?”

“Oh, not so many. Most men, even jewelry men, have more sense than to chase a ghost. But through the years, enough. A jeweler in Antwerp who spent his savings rushing here, there, and everywhere, ending with pockets as empty as his hands. A Singaporean of enormous wealth, already the owner of three of the world’s great jewels. Ah, your face betrays your fascination! The Shanghai Moon, casting its web.

“But now you must tell me: Why are you asking about the Shanghai Moon? And since those two old men didn’t send you, why have you come to me?”

“Mr. Zhang, you say the search for the Shanghai Moon isn’t dangerous in the way I meant. I’m not sure that’s true. You also say there are always rumors about it-have you heard any lately?”

“No, I haven’t. Why?”

“A client hired me to trace some jewelry recently found and then stolen in Shanghai. Rosalie Gilder’s jewelry. The Shanghai Moon may have been there.”

The racket of traffic crowded into the space his silence made. A flock of pigeons swooped by. I wondered if C.D. Zhang had chosen this corner for its chaos and cacophony.

Quietly, he spoke. “Have you seen the Shanghai Moon?”

“No.”

“No.” He nodded. “This is how it always goes. ‘It’s possible.’ ‘It could be.’ ‘I think, I heard, I was told.’ But in the end…”

“Mr. Zhang? What would the Shanghai Moon be worth?”

He fingered his teacup. “There are no accurate records. It would have to be appraised.”

“Sixty years,” I mused. “I wonder if there’s anyone still around who ever saw it.”

“As a boy in Shanghai”-C.D. Zhang looked up-“I saw it myself.”

I stared. “You did? Oh, of course! You were family!”

“Despite the mutual aversion between Chen Kai-rong and my father, yes, we were. But I adored my stepmother, Mei-lin. And more than that I adored being family. I was a lonely boy, a dreamy child in a strict and practical household. I barely remembered my own mother, who died before my third year. My amah and tutors were capable but cold. The social reverberations of Rosalie Gilder and Chen Kairong’s marriage were known to me, a boy of ten, but I didn’t understand or care. I was excited that it gave me more family to be part of.”

“Were you at the wedding?”

“I was. Rosalie Gilder wore the Shanghai Moon at her throat.” His eyes found the nighttime photo. “Though by then it was already legendary. You read about it, you say. So you know its story.”

“I know it was made from an antique jade of the Chen family, and stones from a necklace that had been Rosalie’s mother’s.”

“Its legend started before it was made. Please understand what an extraordinary event this engagement was in Shanghai. Of course Europeans had always taken Chinese wives. The exotic bride-a mark of wealth and power! And Chinese men with fortunes kept European mistresses. British girls, Germans, White Russians. And Americans! Very popular, American girls. And yes, some Jewish refugees took Japanese officers or rich Chinese as lovers. They were poor and times were hard. They did what desperate girls have always done, and though few approved, no one was surprised. But marriage? A Chinese from a noble family and a refugee? It’s hard to say which community was more appalled.”

“Mr. Zhang, the book I read said the engagement was secret.”

“In Shanghai everything was secret, and every secret was known! Over the charcoal stoves in their alleys, the Jewish women whispered that Rosalie Gilder couldn’t be blamed for taking an easy path to good meals and clean clothes-which meant they blamed her deeply. Among my father’s friends, the wives muttered and the men shook their heads. The Chen lineage, that had served every emperor of the last thousand years, diluted with European blood? The prophecies ran wild: the fury of the Chen ancestors, how their retribution would strike!”