“I’m going to Hong Kong tomorrow,” Bai said. “Carrying a few things and picking up some cash. Then when I come back-“”
“Call me,” said Zhou. “Let me know when you’re ready.”
“I will,” said Bai. He would pay Zhou a few thousand ren min bi to do the overnight driving so Bai could save himself for the ordeal of crossing the border. That final gauntlet he would run alone. Zhou knew this. It didn’t need to be said.
Bai smiled. This deal was brilliant, bright as the sun, that bright. He saw the avidity on Zhou’s face. The plan had that streaking, powerful feeling, the unmistakable scent of luck.
“Good,” he said after a minute. He liked the way it was growing around him.
There was one other person Lia was longing to tell about these pots, and that was her former stepfather, Albert. He loved porcelain. He didn’t have much money, but he knew to buy wonderful things in less than perfect condition. During the years he’d lived with Lia and Anita, two pieces stood in the dining room: a globular water pot with a mottled tea-green glaze, Kangxi period, and a chrysanthemum-shaped bowl in celadon from the reign of Qianlong. They were miraculous. They shone with their own light. And Albert made her feel that it was all right to sense a connection to objects, because objects in their perfection resembled love. And when they were imperfect, you loved them for their flaws too. As it was in life. She remembered holding the pale chrysanthemum-shaped bowl, with its curving ribs, to her cheek and feeling its diamond-clean glaze on her skin.
She’d looked him up again as an adult. He lived overseas most of the time now, but they’d managed to meet in New York six or seven years before.
Typical for Albert, he’d wanted to meet at the Met. There was an exhibit of Chinese scholar-objects he thought they ought to see. As she ran up the stairs she saw him standing at the top, his suit as shapeless as ever and he more corpulent within it. His face was ruddier and his eyes more pouched with age. But his brushy mustache was the same, as was the kind smile in his eye.
“Lia!” he said happily. “Look at you.” He took her in, her rangy height, her same long hair, only now she was a woman, grown-up and graceful.
She raised her brows ironically and made some joke of it. Now, looking back, it was clear she’d been younger and more attractive then, though at the time she hadn’t thought so at all. Then she never thought she looked good enough. Always it seemed she could only appreciate herself in arrears. She was never happy to be exactly what she was at any present moment.
They walked together into the exhibit, past brush rests and water pots and scholars’ rocks, calligraphy and table screens and vases, paperweights, boxes for seal vermilion, and inkstones. Walking beside Albert, talking, sharing memories of Anita and her things, Lia felt a sense of family love completed. It was only for a minute, and it was only a wisp, but she felt it. Why couldn’t you have been my father? she thought, the way she often had as a child.
“Tell me about your work at Hastings,” he said.
She could see the pride in his eyes. “Best job in the world! I don’t know how it happened. I get to look at pots all the time. I mean, that’s actually what I get paid to do.”
“And who could deserve it more?” he said. They had paused in front of a brush holder made of zitan wood, burled and rolled like rushing water. Seeing it brought the past to life: the smell of charcoal in the brazier, the propulsive movement of the scholar’s brush on silk. It was just one facet, only an instant, but it was a world. And now it was in her memory.
“Are you married yet?” Albert was asking. She saw him looking at her hand, which bore no ring.
“No.”
“No one?”
She made a rueful twist of her mouth. “I’m waiting. You know.”
“You have time,” he said kindly.
“I know.”
“You’re unique, Lia. The right person will come.”
He meant it nicely, but she felt a sad thud at the well of perceptions she knew was behind it. She was not beautiful in the traditional way, though she had her own grace, a sort of serene allure that was the meeting point of intelligence and physicality. Still, she had no glamour. And so many men, even smart men, wanted beautiful women above all. Not women like her, not obsessive, hyper-internal women with thoughtful eyes and tightly pulled-up hair who lived in alternate mental worlds.
She couldn’t think about this now. She had been pushing feverishly all day and she had to keep going. She put her hands into the crate, sank them into the pliant little wood spirals, and felt for the next box.
She tried to change her clothes before going out to eat in the evening, but it degenerated into another joust of self-doubt. Lia wasn’t much good at her appearance. Even the hipper, more attenuated look practiced by worldly women of her generation didn’t work for her. Most things she tried just looked wrong.
So she’d settled into layering knits to reasonably flatter the straight line of her body and carry her through all situations. It worked, even if it was only an accessory or two away from a uniform.
Tonight, though, she didn’t like anything she had brought. She should be creative. She rooted through the drawer. She should buy something else. She stood in front of the mirror in her underwear, plain cotton, because when she was alone she wore only the most comfortable things, and undid her hair. It fell past her waist. She generally hated going out with it down; there was too much of it, it was too loose in the world, it attracted attention. Sometimes she clipped it at the back of her neck. She did that now.
For the rest, she would compromise. She settled on a close-fitting knit vest and a narrow bias-cut skirt. It almost didn’t matter what she wore or what she did, she thought as she darkened her mouth with lipstick. She was still going to look dry and old-fashioned. Or maybe not. Her eyes were big and gray, not bad at all. She smiled and saw how it transformed her. And she picked up her purse and went out.
Curator Li was on the Internet, scrolling through museum sites and reading newsletters. He was searching for some mention of this thing about which he was still hearing whispers, this movement of a large number of pots. Nothing stayed hidden forever. If it existed he’d find it. Maybe here, in the electronically webbed art world.
Li jumped from a London-based art magazine to a Hong Kong auction house and watched the screen fill up with images. Nothing. Frustration hooked into him and gave a sharp, cynical pull. Was the story real or false?
He quit the server and turned away from the screen to a newspaper article. Their museum seemed to draw mixed public reaction no matter how much good it did. Last week they had bid on and failed to win an important piece of Tang ceramic statuary, more than a thousand years old. In the eyes of the public, they had failed to bring the piece home. What could they do! They had bid to the limit of their budget this time.
But there might be these pieces, on the move. Maybe he could stop them, though he wasn’t sure how. All he could do was keep looking. And keep asking.
Michael Doyle walked out into the hutong the next morning to go to work and saw an American woman with a satchel and computer bag waiting at the gate. She had a long braid. Her back was turned to him. “Are you staying here?” he asked her.
She jumped. She hadn’t heard him. He was used to this; people were startled by him. They said he moved like a cat, big as he was. But then he also saw she wore hearing aids. “I didn’t mean to walk up on you,” he said.
“It’s okay.”
And he saw her wary expression relax into one of bright-eyed humor. He liked her smile. She was nearly as tall as he was, though slighter. He smiled back.
“Yes, I’m staying here,” she said.
“I haven’t seen you.”
She had seen him. “I haven’t been here long.”
He looked her over, all her bags, her quirky work clothes. “What’re you doing in Beijing?”