The First Excellence: Fa-Ling's Map Read online

  Directly behind Fa-ling were the Brahns, Yvanna and Chris. Fa-ling knew of them through their connection to the Conservatory of Music. The Brahns were among Canada’s inconspicuous wealthy, and patrons of the arts. They seemed to be nice people, down to earth, and were obviously determined to keep their family history to themselves.

  At the rear of the section near the washrooms were the Harlans, Ting-lo and Adrian. Ting-lo was a beautiful woman, thirty-something, about six inches shy of being a high-fashion model. Her husband was not ugly, but he was no aesthetic match for his wife. Still, they seemed to be happy, and who was qualified to judge these things?

  The Kaders were to Fa-ling’s left, directly across the aisle. Paula and Guy were a pair of Bay Street traders. Paula had left the floor a couple of years earlier hoping to start a family.

  They were Mr. and Mrs. Average, ultra conservative and organised. Guy was nervously attentive to his wife, behaving more like the father of an unpredictable child than a husband. During the stop in Vancouver, Fa-ling had seen Paula swallowing pills. Since they’d boarded the flight to Shanghai, Paula had not opened her eyes.

  The clang of the coffee cart brought Fa-ling to attention. Soon they would be landing in Shanghai.

  “Coffee?” the flight attendant asked in Cantonese.

  Fa-líng nodded. “And a warm cloth, please,” she said.

  “Here you go.” The woman reached into a basket for a cloth. “Cream?”

  “No, thanks.” Fa-líng had recently learned to drink her coffee black. It wasn’t always possible to get fresh milk in Mainland China.

  The attendant pushed the cart towards the front of the section. As it passed, the man in the seat ahead of Fa-líng stood to make his way to the washroom at the rear. He looked to be around her age ― early twenties – with the serious expression of a student, but full of the innocent cockiness that came from having been raised in the West.

  Fa-ling was not above a little harmless flirting. She smiled at him.

  “You speak Chinese,” he said.

  “Yes. Don’t you?”

  “It’s not a requirement where I come from.”

  Before she could ask him where that was, he was forced to move on by an elderly lady who was waiting to make her way down the aisle.

  Fa-líng closed her eyes and pressed her face into the warm cloth. A memory of Michael sprang into her mind, but she ignored it. It would be fun to meet someone interesting on this trip. At twenty-two she was travelling on her own for the first time. The sense of freedom was almost overwhelming.

  “What about you?” His voice startled her from behind. She had not heard him returning from the washroom. “Where did you learn to speak Chinese?”

  “I was born in Guangxi,” she said. “I spoke Cantonese till I was nine. Then I just kept it up.”

  “Your parents must be happy.” He pointed at the empty seat beside her and raised his brow in a question.

  “Ecstatic,” she said, moving her backpack so he could join her. Many of her friends were Chinese Canadian and had been forced by their parents to learn to speak and read either Mandarin or, more often, Cantonese. Most grew resentful of the hours of dreary study, hating the form of the characters and the ugly sound of the badly spoken words.

  Fa-líng had never needed to be pushed. To her, speaking Cantonese had come easily. In the beginning she held onto her mother tongue as an expression of her refusal to learn English. Later, as her grasp of English improved, so did her mastery of Cantonese.

  It was her discovery of the musical tones of Mandarin, though, that caused her interest in languages to explode. The walls of her room were soon covered with hundreds of perfectly scripted characters, a flood of poetry that changed and grew as she worked her way through adolescence.

  She tucked her backpack under the seat in front of her as her new friend made himself comfortable.

  “Randy Chan,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “Lí Fa-líng. Where are you from?” she asked.

  “My parents are in Boston. I’m studying journalism at Georgetown.”

  “In Washington?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “I’m scooping some extra credits this summer on a special assignment.”

  “A story that takes you to China?”

  “Yeah. Behind the silk veil.”

  “Ah, so,” she said, pressing her hands together and bobbing her head in a mock bow. “It must be a big story to justify a trip like this.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Not at liberty to say?”

  “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” Randy laughed at his own joke. “Seriously, it’s pretty big. If I nail it in time for the fall issue of the Hoya Bugle, I won’t have to worry about landing a job at the end of the year.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  “Are you a student?” he asked.

  “Perpetually.”

  “What’s your major?”

  “So far I’ve been into languages and music,” Fa-líng said. “I’m not sure where I’m going with either of those. I suffer from performance anxiety. That rules out teaching or running off to join a rock band.”

  “I would have guessed you were a science major.”

  “Nice stereotype,” she laughed.

  “Nah. Math whiz would have been a stereotype. Science major is merely a cliché.”

  “What can I say? My parents left the big decisions up to me. I’m not doing a very good job at finding my path. I’m hoping this trip will trigger some self-awareness.”

  “To know oneself, Grasshopper, one must know one’s beginnings.”

  “Something like that,” Fa-ling agreed.

  “What does it mean?” he asked.

  “What does what mean?”

  “Your name. I get ‘Fa’, ‘the law, the way’, but is it ‘Ling’ for ‘a bell’, ‘a beautiful sound’ or ‘a spirit’?”

  “All of the above,” she said. “Sometimes it leans more to the departing spirit.”

  He peeked to make sure she was smiling, and then laughed out loud.

  “Aren’t you glad you asked?” she said.

  “I ask everything. It’s good practice for a journalist.”

  “I suppose I would have trouble keeping secrets from you.”

  “Most people do,” he said. “Occupational hazard.”

  “I’ll have to be more inscrutable.”

  “That won’t work with me. I was top of my class in inscrutability last year.”

  “Not too many Asians at Georgetown?” she asked.

  “More than at my high school in Boston. I was a definite novelty there.”

  “Good thing you aced the ‘inscrutability’ factor.”

  “Ah, so,” he nodded. “How about you? Where do you live?”

  “Toronto.”

  “The Great White North.”

  “Not so ‘white’ as all that,” she said. “It’s way cosmopolitan these days. Huge Asian community.”

  “Chinese?” he asked.

  “Yeah. And Koreans and Vietnamese.”

  “I guess you fit right in.”

  “I guess so,” she said. “My neighbourhood is mostly Cantonese. The old folks fill the schoolyards and parks every morning.”

  “T’Ai Chi?”

  “Yeah. The Chinese come out in flocks. ‘Visibility’ is not an issue in TO.”

  “I’m jealous,” he said. “What’s it like climbing out of the minority?”

  “It’s a real treat.” Fa-líng let her voice trail off. It was time to change the subject. ‘Race’ is only one of a million tags that can be slapped onto a child.

  She and Randy talked for awhile, keeping up a light patter to pass the time. Finally an attendant requested all passengers to return to their seats. The flight was preparing to land.

  “Are you staying in Shanghai?” he asked.

  “No. From there I’m heading to Nanning. I’ll be in Guangxi Zhuang for a week, then on to Beijing.”

  “I’m
flying to Beijing after I finish in Shanghai. Maybe I can look you up. Where are you staying?”

  “We’ll be at the Royal Star Hotel,” she said. “I’m with a group, so I’m just following the leader. I can give you my cell number. If you make it to Beijing while I’m there, give me a ring.” Fa-líng handed him a card with her number and e-mail address. “If I don’t see you,” she added, “drop me a line when you get back to D.C.”

  “Will do. It’s been great to meet you, Fa-líng. Good luck finding yourself.”

  “Thanks. And good luck with your killer story.”

  THREE

  In Shanghai.…

  Dahui printed the email.

  Expect to arrive SH Intl at 11:00. Will look for you there.

  Your cousin,

  Randy

  ‘SH Intl’ must be Shanghai International Airport. The nuances of abbreviated English sometimes escaped Dahui. He double-checked the arrival gate before tucking the page into his shirt pocket.

  “Dahui, come on,” his sister called from the front hall. “It’s getting late.”

  The sun was already strong though it was only seven-fifteen. Before long the morning would be steeped in a noxious blend of urban noise and humidity. He drank his coffee and hurried to join Shopei for their daily T’Ai Chi ritual.

  Normally their mother would join them, but Father was laid up and Mother had not left the house in days. She took tea at Father’s bedside and barely ate her meals, devoting her energy toward her husband’s comfort.

  Dahui did not hint at these problems in his correspondence to his cousin. Mother would not want him to complain. Besides, having Randy in the apartment would give them all something to focus on besides Father’s injuries and the subsequent waning family finances. Soon enough his cousin would see for himself…

  His sister’s step had none of its usual bounce as she followed Dahui to the nearby park. They passed a group of seniors walking more slowly and swinging their arms in the rhythmic warm up exercises of Qi Gong. If Mother were with them, they would greet the elders out of respect, but today Shopei barely noticed them in her hurry.

  The park was a rare inner-city fantasy of greenery that absorbed the traffic noise and filtered at least some of the heavy pollution from the air. Dahui and Shopei hurried toward a clearing where more than fifty people had gathered. The hand movements were already underway. They joined the group, their bodies flowing with a motion that was as natural to them as breathing. It was ‘long-form’ T’Ai Chi, so they would be at it for nearly thirty minutes, depending on the day’s leader.

  After their exercises, Shopei finally relaxed. She did not smile, but her face lost some of the hardness that had been carved on it during the past week. For the first time in days she held Dahui’s arm as they left the park.

  “Coffee, older sister?” he said.

  “You drink too much of it.”

  “There’s a new place on the corner.”

  “At the bookstore?”

  “That’s right.”

  “OK,” she said. “I can pick up a magazine for my boss. If you are late, it’s always wise to bring a gift.”

  His chuckle was heartier than he felt, and louder than her joke warranted, but they were both in need of humour.

  “Randy will be with us soon,” he said. “He should arrive at 11:00.”

  “Will you meet him?”

  “Yes. I’ve already cleared it with my manager. She said I could leave early today.”

  “That’s good. I don’t want to miss any more time from work. Last week was…”

  “I know. It was awful.”

  They found a small table in the centre of the overpriced café. Dahui pulled out a chair for Shopei. She sat and motioned for the waitress. Despite her delicate appearance, her movements were strong and determined. She had inherited their mother’s sense of certainty.

  Dahui was ten when his family left the southern rural community where he was born and came to Shanghai to find work. His parents had received special permission as farmers to bear a second child, in the hopes, of course, of conceiving a son who could help with the labour and carry on the family name.

  Dahui knew he was blessed to have a sister. He could not imagine what his childhood would have been like without her. Their mother, Sui, was a strong-willed woman. Dahui thought of her as a dragon, one of those legions of matrons who would battle to the death to protect their families.

  He knew if he had been born a second daughter it would have broken his mother’s heart. Sui loved Shopei, but one girl was quite enough in a land where the pressure to produce a son was still irresistibly strong.

  No matter. Mother had survived life on her in-law’s farm and the birth of a first-born daughter. She would deal with Father’s injuries and this latest threat to her family. Dahui had infinite faith in his mother’s ability to persevere.

  Dahui and Shopei drank their coffee. They would hurry home with breakfast for Mother and Father, then rush to catch the train. Shopei’s joke aside, neither wanted to be late for work.

  **

  Tan Sho-Sui listened for her children to return. Since their father had been unable to leave his bed, they’d made a practice of bringing breakfast. They knew Sui was exhausted from caring for Da-Lim, changing bedding and bandages without complaint. The children did what they could to help.

  Sui worried Lim’s condition was not improving. He seldom ate more than a few bites of the hot breakfast pastries. She feared he might never be restored to the man he had been before the attack.

  The doctor assigned to Lim’s case was inattentive, exuding the bored intellectual manner of a man meant for greatness but trapped in the role of a civil servant. Beyond setting the broken bones, he prescribed painkillers and bed-rest. Sui did her best to limit the dose of the drug, believing it stilted the natural healing energy of her husband’s chi. She could not withhold it entirely, though. His pain was too severe.

  When Sui was not busy cleaning, she sat by his side, mixing a variety of recommended chi tonics and watching Lim shrink into a shadow of the man she remembered. Sui was well aware there were some things in life even she could not control. It was all she could do to hide her anxiety.

  FOUR

  Dahui and Shopei were taking longer than usual. They would have to hurry if they were going to get to work on time. The moment their mother heard footsteps approaching in the hall, she rushed to open the door for them.

  That was a mistake.

  A large man burst into the room, nearly knocking Sui to the floor. A second, smaller man followed him. A third entered the room slowly, looking around as his subordinates secured the apartment.

  The boss was taller than the other two. Sui followed him to the master bedroom.

  He studied his surroundings through eyes that surrendered no flicker of light from beneath their hooded lids. Were it not for those dead-black eyes, he might have been any man ― a banker perhaps. His clothes, hair and posture all indicated a healthy measure of education and intelligence.

  Sui met his eyes, searching for some assurance of humanity, but the cold black surface of his stare forced her to turn away.

  “Your husband is injured,” he said. His voice was a perfect match for his eyes, flat and low, devoid of inflection.

  Sui glanced at the clock on the bureau. The children would be back at any moment. Whatever business these men had, she wanted to deal with it and get them out of the apartment before Shopei and Dahui arrived.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “You have a son,” the man said.

  “He is at work.” Sui did not add that she also had a daughter. When it came to authority figures, she believed in one cardinal rule: never give away information unless you are sure the recipient already possesses it. One can never know what secrets will prove to be valuable down the road.

  “Very well,” Senior Agent Jiu Kaiyu said. “We just need to look around. Which room belongs to your son?”

  “On the right.” Sh
e struggled to keep her hand from shaking as she pointed toward it. Like most Shanghai apartments, their unit had only two bedrooms.

  “Is this his computer?” Jiu waved at the workstation beside Dahui’s bed.

  “No. It’s mine,” Sui lied.

  “Please turn it on.”

  “It isn’t working.” Her instincts told Sui whatever was on Dahui’s computer might land him in trouble.

  Her stalling tactic was transparent and futile. Jiu Kaiyu nodded. One of his henchmen, the large one, turned on the computer. To her horror, Sui noticed the big man’s massive hands were perfectly manicured. This minor nod to personal grooming was in glaring contrast to his weathered peasant face and rumpled grey suit. It enhanced rather than contradicted his thug-like appearance.

  Agent Ng-Zhi did not look like someone who would be comfortable with technology, but within seconds he had Dahui’s email window opened and was searching through the most recent messages.

  “Got it,” he said. “I’ll print it out.” Unlike his superior, Ng-Zhi’s voice was musical, his words scaling the tones of Cantonese.

  Jiu Kaiyu studied the incoming email, struggling with the English words. He memorised Randy’s flight number and time of arrival, and tucked the page into the pocket of his jacket.

  Sui turned at the sound of footsteps approaching in the hallway. It had to be Dahui and Shopei arriving at last with breakfast.

  “Run away!” Sui shouted, determined to stop her children from stepping into a trap. “Do not come in!”

  In the hallway, Dahui and Shopei heard their mother’s warning. Shopei reached for the door, but her brother held her arm.

  “No,” he whispered. “It is my place to go inside.”

  “Be careful, brother,” Shopei said. Still clutching the bag of breakfast pastries, she ran toward the elevator. Dahui held the doorknob until his sister was on her way back to the street.

  Then he flung the door open, crouching to minimize the target he would present. Dahui had already assumed his fighting stance, hands raised and body low, but he let his arms drop at the sight of the small, angry man holding a gun against his mother’s temple.