Shamian Gate, page 5
“Surely there must be more boys with deformed hands in China. Why Fu-Han?” Jeff asked.
“The order is very old. Líu’an’s special order for guarding scroll, for guarding secret. They wait for Guānjiàn like was said so many centuries ago. At first, monks only want to follow wise word of Líu’an, but then, they think, if Shamian Gate is opened, and Scroll of Power found, then they hold power to rise up, rid China of Communist dog—to return the country to greatness.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t Líu’an’s intention or desire. So, they want to start a civil war with the Scroll of Power?” Jeff asked.
“Yes, yes.”
“And they’re using Fu-Han to open their damn gate?” Ashley asked.
“Yes. Boy is Guānjiàn. Monks have important workers in China looking for Guānjiàn for very long time. Look at hospital record, police record, all kind. When boy was found, hospital record show x-ray of star hand. But, when monk go to orphanage to get boy, he is gone. For three year, we look for Guānjiàn in orphanage all over China. Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs keep moving boy to different institution, hoping for doctor to operate on hand. We learn where boy is; they move him again. Then he adopted by American—you—” the old man pointed at Jeff, “and time running out.”
“Or you’d have to go to America to kidnap him, but you know you’d never get him out of America, much less back into China.”
“Yes, yes. Much trouble. Mei-Mei work for us. She find schedule and know where boy will stay in city. And now, here you are.” The man’s wheezing laugh had a disturbing undertone to it. Almost maniacal.
“Will they hurt Fu-Han?” Ashley said quietly. Her tone made Jeff sad. For all their hopes and dreams of having a family, of bringing their child home and giving him all they could, things end up like this. He wasn’t just sad for them, but for Fu-Han. If this didn’t work out—and things seemed pretty grim—chances of getting him home and giving him that life were slim to none. It was a disaster for them all, a colossal destruction of their dreams for a family, and a complete robbery of everything Fu-Han’s life could be in America. Ashley went on, “Will they kill him for their stupid Chinese fairytales?”
“Very true story. I do not lie.”
Ashley sighed. Jeff knew she was worn ragged, but right now the old man was their only hope for information; they couldn’t afford to piss him off with insults.
“I’m sorry. My wife is very tired and doesn’t mean what she implies.” Jeff shot Ashley a disapproving look. She hung her head and rested it on her drawn up knees. “Are they going to hurt the boy?”
“I do not think so.” The man paused. “But—no one know what happen when gate opens. No one know if boy is really Guānjiàn until he open—or fail to open—Shamian Gate.”
“What do you think happens if he is not this key?” Ashley asked, growing more worried the more the crazy old bastard rattled on. “If they stick his little hand into this lock, whatever it is, and this gate doesn’t open, then what? Will they hurt him? Will they kill Fu-Han?”
“Maybe. If he not Guānjiàn he cannot leave here. No one must know about temple. No one must know about Shamian Gate or Scroll of Power. This is part of the plan that I not like.” The old man shuddered and stared briefly at the chained skeleton hanging forlornly on the cold wall. “Plan like that one—chained and forgotten.”
Jeff looked at his wife, bleak with panic and hopelessness.
“Oh, god,” Ashley groaned. “Why don’t they just kill us and get it over with?”
Chapter Eight
Jeff paced the cell, wearing a path in the straw and dust. Ashley watched him walk back and forth as she turned the recent events over and over in her head, tormenting herself with thoughts of all the things she might have done differently. She rubbed her face with her palms. The ticking of her wristwatch seemed extraordinarily loud in the stillness of the stone room. The steady drip, drip, drip of the rain water competed with the old monk’s snoring. Amidst all of that rhythm was the hard pounding of her heart beating within her ribs—blood rushing so fast it whooshed in her ears, giving her a headache.
After awhile, the old man awoke. “Still here?”
“Nowhere else to go at the moment. Besides, I don’t think you would have been able to sleep through that door opening,” Jeff said.
“Sometimes. Old men sleep hard.”
“Do they feed you?” Jeff wondered if the monks were intent on starving him to death.
“Yes, yes. One time in the light. One time in the dark.”
Jeff looked at Ashley with a slight glimmer of hope. “Have you been fed yet?” His eyes went to the sunlight streaming through the window above.
“No. When door open, it was you—not food. Unless they want me to eat you, but I think you are too fat for my tastes.” The old man gave a short, bitter laugh.
“Hey, I might be a little overweight, but….”
“All Americans are fat, yes?”
Ashley couldn’t help herself; an exasperated laugh escaped her.
Jeff went to where Ashley sat and slid beside her. “Well, they’ve kept him alive, so someone should be along to feed Prince Charming here, and theoretically us, any time now.”
“What are you thinking?” Ashley asked.
“We need a weapon.”
“What?”
“A weapon. If you want out of here, we’re going to have to fight our way out. They aren’t going to let us just walk out of here. You heard the old guy. No one knows what is or isn’t going to happen with this gate business. It sounds like, either way, they aren’t letting us go,” Jeff said.
“So, you’re proposing we kill people? That’s insane.”
“THIS is insane!” He looked around the chamber, wildly gesturing. “Magic gates, deformed hands that unlock mystery doors, and you and me locked in an ancient hovel of a temple prison cell—honey, it doesn’t get any crazier than this!”
Ashley sighed. “So, we make a weapon, then what?”
“We kill whoever brings in the food and we escape.”
“We escape? We run out of the temple, down the mountain, going God only knows where?” Ashley worked hard to control the volume of her voice.
“Where we were—that was a village. I saw a parked truck. Someone else must live there. If we have to, we’ll steal a car. Get help, and come back for Fu-Han.”
“So, murder and auto theft. Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure there are some serious international consequences for that sort of thing. The last thing we need is you getting hauled off to some Chinese prison—”
“Like this one? Look, at this point, I’m willing to take that chance. It’s that, or die here in this god forsaken tomb in the middle of nowhere China. You want to just sit around and wait, cross our fingers and hope for the best? It’s not like we’re going to stumble across a fucking iPhone around here. If they decide they don’t want anyone to leave, or worse, decide to kill us, we’ll all die here and no one will ever find our bodies. After a few years your parents will make us grave markers, so all that’ll be left of us at home in Texas will be neat little plaques in concrete slabs while our bodies rot in this Chinese tomb!” He ran out of breath during his mini rant and went a little around the bend with it, but he didn’t care. She needed to think about this. To understand what it really meant to be trapped here: that they could very well be permanently missing, or dead, soon.
“Point taken,” Ashley said. “So, we make a weapon, kill the food guy, and run out of the temple to the village seeking assistance or stealing a vehicle in hopes of finding our way back to the city and getting help—assuming anyone even listens to us or takes us seriously. In the meantime, what happens to Fu-Han?”
Jeff studied his shoes. “Well, that’s the issue. We don’t know where he is, and if we go poking around the temple looking for him, then we’ll get caught. We have to get out, just you and me. Then we can contact the authorities and come back for Fu-Han. It’s the safest way.”
“Jeff, we can’t leave our son behind. Think about what you’re saying!”
“I’ve been thinking about it. I’m not talking about abandoning him completely, for God’s sake. If he’s important to these people, it’s possible they’ll keep him safe, and alive. I’m saying we come back for him after we’ve contacted the local authorities.”
“The local authorities? The Chinese government? This isn’t America, Jeff. We’ve seen and heard plenty about how they treat these orphans. They’re not going to send anyone anywhere—”
“We don’t know that—”
“For Christ’s sake, Jeff, he’s our son!”
Jeff clenched his fists. His cheeks burned with heat and it was only with a great amount of restraint that he managed to keep from yelling. Instead, he lowered his voice to an angry whisper. “Is he our son? Do we really love him? Until a couple of days ago, all he was to us was a photograph and six sheets of lies. We’re talking about our lives here. You and me. He isn’t really even ours—not yet—just on paper. There are other children—”
“Oh my god, Jeff. I can’t believe what I’m hearing! We have eaten, slept and lived for this child for the past year—more—and now you want me to run down a mountain, leaving him in the hands of God only knows what kind of monsters—I don’t think I can do that,” Ashley’s voice caught in her throat and she choked back a sob. “I’ve waited for this baby for too long, Jeff.”
“Jesus!” He punched his fist into his palm. The smack was a sharp echo in the gloomy cell. “Look, I’m not without feelings here. I know he’s just a child, and that none of this is his fault, and he might die. I don’t fucking feel good about that. But if you’re dead, you can never have any baby, anywhere, ever again. If I am dead, we lose you and me. If you are dead, I lose my reason for living. You and me—that’s what is important. I know, I hear you on the feelings of commitment to Fu-Han—but do we love him? Do we risk our lives for him? Do you feel that yet?” Jeff pleaded with her.
Ashley began crying. “I don’t know what I feel. When I look at him, I know I can love him. I know I will love him. I want to love him.”
“But, the truth is, we don’t love him yet. We love the idea of loving him. The love part is still in the future.” Jeff went to his wife, wrapped his arms around her.
Ashley sobbed. “If we abandon him, like everyone else in his life has, if we turn our backs on him and run away to save our own skins, we are no better than the bastards who left him in that park. We made a commitment to that child.”
“We made a commitment to each other, too.” But the moment he said it, Jeff felt the some of the weight leave his argument. Shame burned in his cheeks. Pain at their loss and fear for Fu-Han ached in his heart. He didn’t want to leave Fu-Han. He wanted to save them all if he could, but it seemed impossible.
“I have this staff—” the monk spoke up, his raspy voice a little stronger than before.
“A walking staff?” Jeff asked.
“For weapon.”
Jeff looked at Ashley and then looked at the monk. He crossed the room and took the walking stick. It was sturdy, solid.
“So, what are you going to do with it? Smack the food guy in the head?” Ashley said, bitterly.
Jeff fished around in his pocket and brought out the little jade-handled knife he purchased in the market shortly before this fiasco began. “I’m going to make a spear.”
“There’s good old American innovation.” She coughed a resigned, mirthless laugh, and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve. She sniffed, trying to calm down.
Jeff worked on the end of the walking staff to make a notch. Then he fit the knife into it and looked around. He spied Ashley’s fabric belt tied around her shirt. “Does that belt come off of your shirt?”
“Yes.”
“Can I have it?”
Ashley untied the belt and pulled it from the loops. She passed it to Jeff.
Jeff used it to secure the knife to the staff, fashioning a crude spear. He jerked it around to test the strength of the makeshift spear’s tip. The blade held fast.
The monk nodded approvingly.
“Thank you for your staff. When we leave, we will leave the door open for you, so you can escape,” Jeff said.
“No, no, no. Old men don’t run anywhere. Close door. That way no one know you gone. I will eat my food. Sleep awhile. Will be many hours until someone wonder about monk who bring food. You run,” the monk said, sounding amused at the suggestion.
Jeff nodded and then turned to Ashley, whispering to her the plan. The old man didn’t need to know the details. The less he knew the better. They positioned themselves against the wall in front of the door, the spear gripped in Jeff’s hand, hidden beneath the straw. They took turns dozing, the other listening for approaching footsteps or any sign that someone was coming.
On his watch, Jeff heard the groaning of the big brass pull ring outside the door. “Ash,” he hissed. “It’s time.”
Ashley jumped to her feet, standing in plain view of the door.
The massive door creaked and grated open, and a shaved monk crossed the threshold. He bent over, placing a large food tray on the ground without looking into the chamber. When he straightened himself and looked around the room, he gasped and paused in shock.
Ashley stood there, her blouse hanging around her waist, bare breasts exposed and her arms held out like some wicked siren. “Helllllooo,” she said, with a seductive smile on her face. The monk did not seem interested as much as he was momentarily unbalanced by this turn of events. Ashley moved fast. Before the man walked in, she had grabbed a handful of straw from the floor and ground it to dust. Now she opened her palm and threw the straw-dust into the monk’s eyes. Next, Jeff slid along the wall, and then, fighting a powerful reluctance to go through with this, buried the blade in the unsuspecting monk’s back.
The monk cried out, twisting quickly, grabbing the blade, yanking it, and then turning with a roundhouse kick. His foot hit Jeff in the head. The kick jarred him hard, and he fell against the stone wall, losing the grip on his spear.
There was a whoosh in the air as the monk whipped the spear around with a forearm block, but he couldn’t see with the straw-dust in his eyes. He blocked and turned. The staff rattled to the ground.
Jeff shook off the blow, scrambling to grab the fallen spear. As soon as he had his hands on it again, he lifted it, without thinking, and rammed it once again into the man. The feel of the blade piercing skin between the monk’s ribs, puncturing the lung, sent a powerful shiver of revulsion through Jeff that he wouldn’t let deter him.
The monk yelled.
Ashley shoved a piece of fabric, previously torn from her blouse, into the man’s mouth and held it there, as Jeff stood, fighting back the overwhelming horror of what he was doing, and drove the spear home again, and again, and again until the monk lay motionless on the ground. Crimson blood crept over the straw, discoloring it as the puddle spread.
Ashley pulled her blouse on, buttoning it as they ran from the chamber. They didn’t look back at the dead man. Jeff pulled the big door shut with trembling arms and they ran through a stone corridor, toward a bright light that promised to be a door to the outside world.
Torches lit the way through the hall, but all the while the bright light of the sun guided them in what they hoped was the direction to escape. Silence filled the old temple as they scurried like rats through the passages.
The front door of the structure, the arched temple gate engraved on each side with ancient writings, came into view. They slowed just a few steps. Jeff’s heart pounded and he reached back, clutching the spear with one sweaty palm, and shielding Ashley from the opening with his arm.
There was no one around.
No guards stood patrol at the entering to the temple. So sure they were of their isolation and secrecy that no precautions had been made to alert the others of anything out of the ordinary. Jeff took Ashley’s hand as they sprinted up the stairs to the door.
A child’s wails drifted through the still of the mountain tunnels. Sobs and cries. The shuddering, fearful, plaintive begging of a small boy seeking comfort. Ashley came to a stop beneath the massive archway which served as the gateway to freedom. Jeff froze at the sound of the child’s cries.
He looked back at his wife. Her eyes were wide and wild with the terror of their flight.
“It’s Fu-Han!” she whispered.
Jeff looked back into the temple. Inside was the corridor from which they had just emerged, and a second egress, leading to another area of the temple: the area from which Fu-Han’s cries echoed.
Tears coursed over Ashley’s cheeks, and nothing she could have said would have communicated more than that look in her eyes. Jeff’s heart ached for his wife, for their boy, for the whole rotten mess. There wasn’t time to debate. As much as he was committed to his plan, now faced with the prospect of leaving the child here while they ran to get help, it was simply unthinkable.
With freedom at their backs, they plunged into the temple’s halls. They weren’t leaving without their son.
Chapter Nine
Fu-Han’s wails grew louder. The sounds were coming from the passage to the right, which angled away from the corridor through which they had come. Ashley’s words echoed in Jeff’s ears: My baby. Our son. She was right. He was their child. Hope and yearning had been the foundation of their relationship as they waited for this boy, as they invested in visions of their new future. Around this child, known only through a photograph, they shared dreams of a life not yet fully formed. And, yet, the emotion was real. The dreams were real. Isn’t parenthood about sacrifice and doing what’s right even when emotional conflicts cloud the big picture? At what point do you become a parent? At conception? During pregnancy? At birth? Or is it when you acknowledge this child, this human being, is your responsibility in all regards?
The realization settled over him even as his body responded to the need to protect the boy. He would do whatever necessary to save Fu-Han, at any cost.
