I imagined the Chen family to possess would have done to save my friends. But it was the Shanghai Moon that consumed me. Because it was not only a treasure of the Chen family but of the wife of Chen Kai-rong. He was responsible for my nightmare. As recompense for my suffering, I deserved the gem!
“By the time we reached the villa, I was aflame with fury and righteousness. We broke in easily—I knew the gates, the walls, their weaknesses, from days of childhood play. Screaming, waving our rifles, we forced everyone to the study. I must tell you, my resolve nearly broke when I saw my brother, thin and trembling. In my feverish visions of triumph and revenge, he had not appeared.
“But my companions were dismayed and panicked by the bare walls, the empty shelves. Where were the treasures? A smaller boy, a child I didn’t know, began to cry, and both Rosalie and my brother stepped forward to comfort and protect him. My brother, safeguarding a strange child! My duty to my friends became all I could see, all I lived for. I seized old Chen Da, Kai-rong’s father. Something must remain, some hidden treasure—the Shanghai Moon must be in the villa, I was sure of it. I beat him, an old man; I beat him and he would tell me nothing.
“Then . . . I don’t know. I don’t know precisely what happened. I heard a shot, and when I turned to look, it was not one of my men but the old houseboy—I remembered him, always slipping sweets to the children—and he aimed a rifle at me! I fired first. And my shot struck Rosalie.
“When Rosalie fell, the fog of madness cleared instantly. What had I done? Both children reached for her, wailing. I called out, ordered my companions to leave with me. As they had for weeks, they obeyed. The old houseboy chased after us. One of my friends stopped him with one shot.”
C. D. Zhang’s labored breathing and his pallor made me think he wouldn’t go on, but after a few moments he turned his gaze to me. “We took nothing with us. Do you understand? Nothing. If Rosalie wore the Shanghai Moon, my companion didn’t find it.”
It took me time to regain my voice. The Shanghai Moon seemed almost beside the point. Still, I asked, “How do you know? What’s to say he didn’t keep it from you?”
“Because he died! They died, both of them, fighting to force their way onto a ship on which they could not buy passage! The Shanghai Moon would have saved them. But they—we—didn’t have it.
“So I and my father sailed for Taipei, and my fellows died. We came to America, and I started a new life. But there’s no putting the past behind you, no matter what you’re told. The sight of my companions’ hands reaching out to me from the gangway has haunted me always. And another sight, so similar: those two young boys, reaching for Rosalie.”
Another cough; then, with clearly slipping strength, he resumed. “Twenty years later, when I received that letter from Shanghai, I felt I’d been given a new chance. I could help my brother and my cousin, I could save them, and we could be a family. But of course that hasn’t happened. It would have been much more than I deserved. My brother especially has always felt a discomfort in my presence. He’s a sweet-natured man and regrets this sentiment he doesn’t understand. As though his unease were the result of some flaw in himself.”
C. D. Zhang’s eyes slowly closed. “I didn’t take their money,” he murmured. “I’d taken far too much from them already.”
39
Bill and I had left the hospital and were back in Chinatown, but even these familiar streets didn’t give me any sense of being on solid ground.
“You think it’s true?” I asked. “What he said?”
“Could you tell a story like that if it weren’t true?”
“He killed Rosalie? But . . .”
“But you like him.”
“And he was family!”
“Families are complicated things.” He lit a cigarette and didn’t look at me.
I trudged on glumly. I didn’t like this new knowledge; it was weighty and disheartening and didn’t seem to offer any compensation, like for example help in figuring out where the million dollars was. Or the Shanghai Moon.
“We have a plan?” Bill asked.
“Are you kidding?” I turned down Mulberry for no good reason. At Bayard we stopped for a funeral to go by. In my mood, I wasn’t surprised;