“Bollocks! You’re pulling my leg!”
“I wish I was. He’s offering an insane amount of money for the house.”
“Bloody hell, between Colette and her father, the Bings are clearly out for blood in Singapore. Don’t sell it to him.”
Rachel sighed. “I wish it were up to me. Nick and I are actually trying to avoid him, and I think I hear people arriving.”
“Okay, call me later.”
···
Jack Bing stood in the middle of the Andalusian Cloister, puffing away on his cigar as he stared at the ornately carved columns. “This is incredible. I’ve never seen a house like this in my whole life,” he said in Mandarin.
“I love this inner courtyard! We can take out this reflecting pool and put in a real swimming pool,” Kitty suggested in English.
Felicity, Victoria, and Alix winced but said nothing.
Oliver stepped in diplomatically. “Kitty, this reflecting pool was brought over tile by tile from Córdoba, Spain. Do you see these blue-and-coral Moorish tiles lining the pool? They’re extraordinarily rare, from the thirteenth century.”
“Oh, I had no idea. Of course we must keep them, then,” Kitty said.
Jack stared at the lotus-shaped rose quartz in the middle of the fountain that was bubbling a slow, hypnotic trickle of water. “No, we mustn’t change a thing. This house may not be as grand as our place in Shanghai, but it has amazing feng shui. I can feel the chi flowing through everywhere. No wonder your family prospered here,” Jack told the assembled ladies.
The Young sisters nodded politely, as none of them spoke Mandarin and only understood about thirty percent of what he said. Jack looked at the three frumpily dressed sisters, thinking to himself, Only women who grew up in a place like this can get away with looking like that. And they can’t even speak a word of Mandarin. They are like dodo birds, a useless species. No wonder they are losing their house.
The group proceeded through the arcade into the library.
Jack looked around at all the old books lining the double-height bookcases and the sleek Indian rosewood desk. “I love this kind of furniture. Art deco, isn’t it?”
“Actually, this was Sir James’s library, and he had all the furniture custom designed by Pierre Jeanneret in the late 1940s,” Oliver informed him.
“Well, it reminds me a bit of the old Shanghai clubs where my grandfather used to play,” Jack remarked. Turning to the ladies, he said, “My grandfather worked in a water-boiler factory, but he was also a trumpet player. Every night for extra money, he would play in a jazz band that performed in all of the clubs frequented by Westerners. When I was a little boy, it was my duty to shine his trumpet for him every night. I would spit and spit at the trumpet to clean it, in order to make the polish go farther.”
Felicity backed away nervously, afraid that he might actually perform one of his spitting demonstrations near her.
“How much for the furniture?” Jack asked.
“Er…which pieces did you have in mind? Some of them are…things…that we could never part with,” Victoria said in the rudimentary Mandarin she used with her servants. “Oliver, how do you say ‘heirloom’ in Mandarin?”
“Ah, that’s ‘chuan jia bao,’?” Oliver told her.
“Oh, I love the tables, the chairs, this purple-and-blue rug, especially.” Jack pointed at the floor. Felicity stared down at the purple silk rug and a story her aunt Rosemary T’sien had once told her suddenly came flooding back…
You know your mother once stared a Japanese general in the eye and dared him to shoot her? It happened right here in this library, where Su Yi was hosting a card party for some high-ranking officers. They were always forcing her to do things like this during the occupation, host these horrible debauched parties for them. My husband—your uncle Tsai Tay—had just been arrested for some ridiculous offense, and when the general lost a game of gin
rummy to your mother, she demanded that in return he free Tsai Tay. Of course the general was outraged by her boldness, and immediately took out his pistol and held it to her temple. I was sitting right next to her, and I thought she was a gone case.
Su Yi remained completely calm and said in that imperious way of hers, “General, you are going to ruin Rosemary’s beautiful cheongsam if you shoot me right now. My brains will be all over it, not to mention this beautiful art deco carpet from Paris. Do you know how much this carpet is worth? It’s designed by a very famous French artist named Christian Bérard, and would make such a beautiful present for your wife, if only it wasn’t stained with my blood. Now, you wouldn’t want to disappoint your wife, would you?” The general was silent for a moment, but then he burst into laughter. And then he put down his gun, took the rug with him, and the next day, they released my husband from prison. Tsai Tay would never forget what Su Yi did for him.
Hiyah, there are so many stories I can tell you about the war years, but Su Yi wouldn’t want me to. But you know, she saved the lives of so many people, and most of them didn’t even realize she was the one responsible. She wanted it that way. After the war was over, we heard that the general was executed for war crimes during the war tribunals in Manila. One day, your mother called me up and said, “You’ll never guess what just arrived in a long box. That purple art deco rug that the general took back to Japan. I suppose his wife never approved of it.”
Felicity snapped out of her reverie and said decisively, “Mr. Bing, this rug isn’t for sale. But there are some items that we could offer with the house.”
“All right then. Oliver, could you make an assessment of how much everything is worth? I’ll take whatever chuan jia biao these nice ladies will let me have,” Jack said, turning to the Young sisters with a little smile.
“Of course,” Oliver said.
“Ladies, I approve of this house, and I think my family will be very happy using it whenever we visit Singapore. Thank you for showing us around this morning, and please, this is a standing offer, so take your time to decide. I know this must not be an easy decision for all of you,” Jack said. He then strolled out the front doors, flicked his cigar onto the gravel driveway, and got into the back of the first black Audi SUV. Kitty climbed in after him, the bodyguards got into their SUVs, and the convoy of cars zoomed off.