The Chinese Alchemist (10 page)

“I have an errand for you,” the woman known as Lingfei said. “I understand you can read and write. I would ask you to write down this list,” she said, gesturing to brushes and ink. When I had complied, she continued. “You will go to the lane of the apothecary, and thence to the stall whose name I will give you. Ask the proprietor to give you the powders that are listed and bring them back as soon as you can. There is more than enough money in the pouch for the purchase. You may keep for yourself what is left. There is plenty there for you to indulge your passion for dumplings and fried pastries,” she said. “There will be another coin for you if you return quickly.” With that she tossed the pouch, which resembled the ones distributed the previous evening by the emperor, toward me and disappeared into the shadows.

This was perplexing, to be sure. This woman knew far more about me than I did of her. It was true I liked the dumplings from a certain stall in the market, not far from the apothecary lane. It had been pointed out to me more than once that I was no longer the skinny child I was when I had first arrived at the Imperial Palace. How would a royal concubine like Lingfei, whose acquaintance I had just made, know that?

It was the first of many surprises during the time I knew Lingfei. It was also the first of many errands. I was regularly sent to the markets to fetch what she needed, most often to the apothecary lane. I often had to wait for some time, while she attended to some young woman or another, but it was a pleasant enough place to wait. It was many months before I summoned the courage to ask her if she would tell me about these potions, but to no avail: she declined, saying that time would tell whether or not I could be someone with whom she shared this information.

It took me a moment or two to get my bearings. I was in a narrow lane lined with high walls. The buildings were gray brick with gray roof tiles, so the place had a monochromatic aspect, punctuated here and there by a brighter sign and on one side by a lone red Chinese lantern that seemed to glow in this setting. It was quiet, the bustle of the street I had just left only a muffled sound behind me. Two men were sitting on the street playing chess, two birdcages hanging near them, the birds chirping away. Another man was repairing a bicycle nearby.

For a moment I just stood enjoying myself, drinking in this place so different from the new Beijing of traffic and towers. This is what Beijing used to be, a city of tiny streets like this one, called a hutong or lane. I was in a hutong neighborhood. This was the Beijing I’d loved twenty years ago, the one of little neighborhoods, and I was happy to have rediscovered it. The residents themselves run these neighborhoods, electing their own leaders, and setting the rules for everyone. Many things are shared, I was reminded, as a teenage boy came out of a doorway in his pajamas and a well-worn terry bathrobe, walked briskly along the street, and then into what was clearly marked, with the international man and woman symbols, as a public toilet. That made me smile for some reason. There were wires for electricity, and aerials for television, but there were also communal bathrooms.

It was all quite lovely, in an understated way. The rather stately gray walls of the lane were punctuated by doors, some ramshackle, others much more elaborate. In the latter case, the entrances were painted, often red, and they had lovely old door knockers. Sometimes I could look through to the courtyards beyond; in still others, my view of the interior was blocked by a decorated wall or screen, attractive in its own way.

I was enchanted. It was all coming back to me: the houses are called
siheyuan,
a typical northern Chinese style of home. The Forbidden City uses this same design writ large. The houses are a series of single-story buildings built around courtyards, sort of like a family compound. You go through a door, a gate really, called a “good luck gate,” and then you’re in the first courtyard. You can tell how important the person was who originally lived in the siheyuan by the number of crossbeams at the entranceway. You can see the rounded ends of the beams, some of them painted and decorated, protruding out of the gate over the door. No beam or one beam signifies a very ordinary family. Five beams and you’re in the presence of a pretty important person. Nobody got seven beams because seven is an unlucky number in China, and nine was a number reserved for the emperor.

It was captivating to be sure, but unfortunately there was no sign of Burton. I’d given him too much of a head start when I’d waited for him to come out of that shop. I decided I should just savor the experience and look around, and with any luck he’d turn up. If he didn’t, then I’d had an enjoyable time, and I’d just go back to the hotel. Knowing I was in a hutong neighborhood technically meant I couldn’t get lost, as the houses in hutongs are aligned as the Forbidden City is, in fact as all of Beijing is, or at least used to be, on a north-south axis. The main avenues tend to also run in that direction, the hutongs run east-west by and large, linking them. If I kept going, I’d hit a main thoroughfare, and transportation back to the hotel.

Still, after a few minutes, I was feeling a bit anxious. Yes, technically hutongs ran east-west, but there were side lanes that didn’t, and I didn’t have a clue where I’d started. It was now a bit overcast, and a light snow was beginning to fall, making all the streets look even more the same. After several minutes, I still hadn’t come upon a main thoroughfare as I had thought I would.

I began to think that not only had I lost Burton, I was pretty much lost myself. Still, luck was with me on both counts. My first break was a very loud drumming sound that began quite suddenly not that far away. It had to be the Drum Tower, which marked the north end of the old city of Beijing, and I knew where that was. Realizing that the drumming would not continue for long, I started off at a fast pace in the direction of the sound. As I rounded a corner, I realized all was not lost on the Burton score either. I backed up a few paces in the direction I’d come, and then carefully peered around the corner again.

Burton was standing in front of one of the more elaborate siheyuan, talking to someone in the doorway. This home had a rather large, richly ornamented good luck gate flanked by imposing stone sculptures, guardians of the gate. The wall of the compound stretched along the hutong for many yards, and I could see a rather impressive roofline inside the wall. If I were a betting person, I’d say whoever lived there had his own bathroom. After all, there were five beams on that gate. And to all appearances, the lucky person in question was the man in black.

This was all very perplexing, to say nothing of irritating. As personally rewarding as touring the hutong neighborhood might have been for me, following Burton everywhere was not my idea of a good time, and his constant obfuscation as to his plans was definitely getting up my nose. Still, I too had a plan, one that involved finding my way back to the hotel and then ambushing him. With the Drum Tower, a fabulous structure that was used to sound the time both morning and evening for the inhabitants of ancient Beijing in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, located, and a taxi hailed to take me to the hotel, I put my plan into action. I rather hoped the army officer hadn’t recognized me. I seemed to be the only Caucasian woman in the neighborhood, and therefore more obvious than usual. I’d worn a hat and scarf against the cold and snow, and I hadn’t noticed any glimmer of recognition on his face in the second or two before I’d hightailed it out of there. Indeed, he and Burton had been very deep in conversation. I was reasonably sure that Burton, with his back to me, had no inkling of my presence.

I ordered myself a coffee in the lobby and waited for Burton to return. I gave him about five minutes to get to his room and get his coat off before I pounced. I knew which room was his. He’d bought the drinks when we’d met in the bar, and I’d noted it when he signed for them. He answered my knock with a can of disinfectant spray in his hand. I held my breath for a few seconds in case he decided I had to be hosed down before I would be permitted to enter. He didn’t look happy to see me, but at least he didn’t blast me with the disinfectant, and after a long pause, he stepped aside and gestured for me to come in.

“I have a proposal for you, Burton,” I said.

“Could it not wait until this evening? I’m going to see you at the auction. I was hoping to have a bit of a rest. I’m not feeling completely well.” Actually, he didn’t look well, now that he mentioned it. He kept his head down as he spoke, and still had his sunglasses on. This did not stop me.

“Your qi is no longer harmonious, is that it, Burton? I’m sorry to hear that. Here is what you are up to. You aren’t looking for a substitute for the T’ang box. I think you’re looking for the box itself. Mira Tetford, whom you met the other day, has had all the newspapers checked, and there is no word of the theft from the auction house yet. You think if you put the word out, the thief, who may think he’s relatively safe given the lack of publicity, will come to you. You are following every lead. Am I right?” Actually, although I had decided not to mention it, the lead he’d been following that morning had been mine: the idea that the man in black had deliberately blocked the view of the custodian at the auction house so that the thief would have a head start. The man in black might even have given the doorman the wrong impression as to which young man to tackle.

He shuffled uncomfortably in his chair. “I suppose I might be doing that,” he said. “There’s a chance, you know.”

“I think it’s a really long shot, and probably a waste of time. But I want that box, too, as much as you do, if not more. What I am suggesting is that we look for the box together. It will save time. If one of us finds it, the deal is that it goes back to the auction house. We both get to compete for it again, and we’ll let the legal process take its course. May the best person win, as you would say. You might as well agree. Purchasing it is one thing, but you would have trouble getting it out of the country if it has been reported stolen.”

“I could probably get it out.”

“They definitely don’t want stolen antiquities taken out of the country. If you got caught, they’d assume you were the one who stole it. Even if you legally purchased it at the auction, China probably doesn’t want you to take it out.”

“That’s ridiculous. I mean, yes, the Chinese government is asking the U.S. to ban imports of Chinese antiques and antiquities over ninety-five years old. Hypocritical if you ask me.”

“What’s hypocritical about wanting to protect your heritage for your own citizens?”

“Protect your heritage? Surely you know that during the Cultural Revolution people were encouraged to destroy much of the country’s heritage—antiques, temples, tombs, you name it. It was state-sponsored hooliganism, if you ask me. Almost everything of value from an historical perspective was a target.”

“That was then, this is now. Now they want to protect it.”

“They have a funny way of doing it. You wait until tonight at the auction. You’ll see. There’ll be dozens of Chinese collectors paying large sums for the merchandise. The biggest market for Chinese antiquities is the Chinese themselves.”

“So?”

“So these bidders will by and large be private citizens, the new wealthy class, young and aggressive. These objects are not going to museums where they can be shared with the proletariat, I can assure you. They are going to people like Xie Jinghe, who, elegant gentleman though he may be, will be the only viewer, unless of course he lets some of his equally wealthy friends have a peek at his treasures every now and again. So why shouldn’t we, as North Americans, either individual collectors or dealers or museum curators, have the same access?”

“What about—?”

“Please don’t give me the argument about buyers and collectors encouraging looting. The Chinese government urges its citizens to get out there and collect Chinese art and antiquities. If anything is encouraging looting, that is it.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let me put my feelings on this subject another way. If I found out you were trying to smuggle something out of the country, I would report you in a flash. Despite what you say, I believe the penalties here have become quite harsh for exporting something of real cultural significance, which this arguably is, particularly when it’s been stolen. The death penalty, isn’t it?”

He paled. He should have, too, because people have in fact been executed for smuggling fossils out of China. “How do I know you won’t find it and not tell me?” he said, after he managed to compose himself.

“You don’t. I’m just giving you my word that I will play fair here. Personally, I think I’m the one taking the greater risk.”

He thought about it all for a minute. “Okay,” he said. “Deal. Let’s shake on it.”

We shook, my bare hands to his surgical gloves. “Do you want some tea?” he said, gesturing toward a rather complicated bit of tea paraphernalia and a box of some kind of tea that I didn’t recognize. “I’ve brewed a pot. This one helps remove blockages of the qi.”

Once again, it smelled like drain cleaner. I declined. “What is that thing?” I asked, pointing at a small cylindrically shaped machine of some kind that was humming away rather noisily.

“It’s an air filter,” he said.

“You travel with an air filter?” I asked incredulously.

“I do,” he said. “Dual voltage, of course, with a set of international plugs so I can use it anywhere. The same goes for my tea kettle. You can’t count on a hotel to have them in the rooms, and anyway, who knows who’s used them and what they put in them.”

“You travel with an air filter,” I repeated.

“What’s your point?” he asked in a peevish tone.

“No point, I guess.”

“It’s flu season. Everyone is coming back from Asia with these horrible bronchial conditions.”

“I see. I’ll try not to do that. To get back to the real point of this conversation: where are we going next?” I asked.

“Panjiayuan Market,” he said. “Do you know it? It’s south and east of here. It’s big, so we’ll go tomorrow morning and spend a good part of the day if we have to.”