Despite Chu Shi’s rejection, he obeyed the orders from Beijing and went to the island. He talked to as many of the islanders as he could. On his way back to his boat he saw Chu Shi in the darkness down by the beach. He was about to approach when a young man broke from the nearby thicket and ran into her arms.
Jiajia, Iman’s chosen. Her betrothed.
The weather turned suddenly cold as he returned from the island. Early for it. He bundled up as he sat in his room and wrote to the Ministry of the Interior.
MADAME MINISTER:
Two weeks ago, the Islanders, after an initial resistance, accepted sizeable sums of money from the foreigners in return for which, Iman, their leader, agreed to give the foreigners the family histories they wanted.
Why the foreigners would want the islander’s family histories is a mystery to me.
Now the foreigners want to take blood samples from the islanders. Iman categorically refused and violence was only narrowly avoided as the foreigners had to be escorted off the island by local police.
Work on the shoal is proving almost impossible. Could I request, with all respect, a return to my work in Xian?
C.
Madame Wu received the communique just as she was finishing another long day in her office. Her old eyes read the words and sensed their meaning. The man’s love affair was over and now he wanted to go home. He may be exceptionally talented, this one, but he acts just like every other male.
Madame Wu felt her assistant’s steely eyes on her. Had she spoken aloud? No. Absolutely not. She returned the stare and the man backed off. “Perhaps it’s time to get myself a younger, prettier assistant. It had been a long while since someone young and pretty had been her companion.
“Madame Minister?”
“Respond that he is to stay at Lake Ching until I tell him that it is time for him to go. As well, tell him that he is not to presume. That all normal formality shall be used in all his communications.”
The man quickly left the office.
Madame Wu turned to the window. Police were already on the island to help the foreigners. So the danger was near. For a moment she thought about her son. Then about her mother.
So many ghosts these days. But this is an important time. A time of change. They were dangerous times for individuals. The good of the country came first. The future needed to be addressed – no – forged. What could she care for a dead mother and a son who was lost to her.
Two days later the archeologist was surprised to see the old fisherman approach the shoal. He was wrapped in rags to keep out the cold. “What now, old man?” he yelled.
“They’re scaring off the fish!” the old man barked.
“Who is?”
“The visitors! Don’t you know anything!”
Dr. Roung was about to rise to the bait when something told him to hold his temper. “Are the foreigners back, old man?” It came out awkwardly – half-question, half-accusation.
“Worse than that.” What could be worse to this man than foreigners? “Government people. Beijing government people.”
This was new. “Take me.” He reached into his pocket and threw a few bills at the older man. The fisherman did a good impression of a cabbie who thought his tip was too light.
Chu Shi wasn’t happy to see him when he entered her hut. “I’m a married woman now.”
“I know.”
She started to leave, but he reached for her. At first he thought she was going to scream. Then he thought she was going to hit him, and then, somehow, their clothing lay in piles on the floor and he flowed into her as she sang his name over and over. When they were done, she handed him his clothing and his expensive imported glasses. They dressed slowly staring at each other.
Then suddenly she was crying.
He held out his arms to her, but she shook her head.
“I need answers to a few questions.” A look of shock crossed her face. It was almost comical.
“You came here to ask me questions?” she blurted out.
“No. It’s the only way I think I can get to see you again.”
“Don’t try to see me again.” But her fingers were interlocked with his.
“Who are the new people on the island?”
“Government people,” she answered.
“Police officers?”
She looked away. When she spoke, her words came out slowly as if their very sounds were dangerous. “No. Different. Government people from Beijing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“What do they want, Chu Shi?”
“They threatened Iman that if he doesn’t agree to give blood samples to the foreigners they’ll remove our people from the island. They claim we never had any right to be on the island in the first place.”
“Will Iman give in to the demands?”
“He already has.”
That night in the cold, haunted silence of his room in Ching he wrote again to Madame Minister Wu.
This missive she received while attending a formal state banquet for the Japanese ambassador and several of that country’s leading industrialists. Toasts were exchanged. History forgotten. A swollen future embraced.
“Just like before the liberation,” she thought as she raised her glass. “Foreigners everywhere, owning everything.”
Madame Wu sipped the heated saki. The air conditioning puffed out the silk of the woman’s blouse across the table from her.
Silk!
Throughout her youth, Madame Wu had been forced to carry silkworm eggs strapped to her body. It kept the eggs warm. Many nights she was awakened by her mother screaming at her not to roll over in her sleep and crush the precious eggs. Other nights she awoke feeling a feathery movement on her skin. One ounce of eggs produced twenty thousand worms. They’d hatch in the night. She hated having to stand naked and still as her mother picked them off her.
The worms had to increase their weight ten thousand times before they spun their cocoons. Since noise was harmful to their growth, the house was a place of silence. But in the silence was intense anger.
It was always a relief when the worms finally began to spin their cocoons from the loose stalks of straw that the family had provided. The two or three days needed to spin were the happiest times in the house. But it was short-lived. Once the cocoons were spun, the chrysalis had to be killed.
Boiled.
Her mother’s hands, an angry red from fishing the cocoons out of the boiling water and carefully unravelling the still-wet pouches, were the stuff of her childhood nightmares. And it had all been done for a silk factory owned by the very Japanese they were toasting here tonight.
Traitors.
The men who run this country are traitors to the people of China – to the memory of her mother.
But they will not get away with it. Her family will see to that.
The Japanese ambassador was speaking. Something about business bringing our two great countries together. Madame Wu sipped at her saki again. She grimaced. The taste made her angry. Yet another foreign thing to be swept out of the country. Then she looked at the saki and a slow smile crossed her features.
Dr. Roung was surprised when the case of wine arrived with the note from the Interior Minister:
Please present this to the Islanders with my compliments on their new business venture. Enclosed please find a requisition order to cover your expenses for the banquet that should accompany my gift. – M.W.
He stared at the case of ceremonial wine. Then at the note from Madame Wu. This was definitely her writing style. But something was wrong. Why send a case of wine from Beijing? Although he didn’t drink himself, he was pretty sure this wine was available in Xian. But before he followed this line of inquiry he saw that this presented another opportunity to see Chu Shi – and all reason vanished before the onslaught of desire.