"You will tell me everything he says. It is vital… to the Revolution," Wang Bin said. "I would like to be there myself, but I must return immediately to Peking.
Go make the arrangements."
When the aide had gone, Wang Bin extracted a green and white envelope from the breast pocket of his Mao jacket. The telegram had arrived with breakfast and he knew its contents by heart.
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO APPEAR BEFORE THE DISCIPLINARY COMMISSION OF THE PARTY.
It gave a time and a date: tomorrow.
He had been expecting it. And it might have come sooner. Once again, it seemed, those idiots in Peking were determined to wrestle long-suffering China back into the Middle Ages. A few months before, such a summons would have paralyzed Wang Bin with terror-as it was intended to do. But he had foreseen it this time, and he was ready. Now there was just fleeting irritation at the dreadful cost to the nation and his own comfort. Let them writhe, he thought. Let them devour their own entrails if they wish. Comrade Deputy Minister Wang Bin would never again collect night soil.
This new peace of mind had its price, of course: an odious alliance with the American art dealer Harold Broom. His name had come to Wang Bin from an underground buyer in Hong Kong. Broom had been highly recommended, not for his taste-he had none-but for his resourcefulness. It was a trait that Wang Bin had come to appreciate, though he could not help but despise Broom for his crude arrogance.
Their short relationship had been curt, clandestine and efficient. So far. A visa problem smoothed over. A travel permit expedited. Quiet favors.
Yet there were watchers everywhere, Wang Bin well knew. He doubted that the Disciplinary Commission had learned the truth about Harold Broom, but such news would not shock him. He was ready for anything.
By the time the aide returned to confirm the travel arrangements, Wang Bin had already decided.
"We will take the first one and the fourth one," he said, pointing to the smallest of the four vases.
"Yes, Comrade Deputy Minister. But the comrade director of the museum will be very upset. They are among the best pieces."
"Tell him they are for permanent display in a place of honor in Peking."
"Still, he will not like it."
"Tell him it is for the good of the people. The Revolution demands it."
"Very well, Comrade Deputy Minister. But he is a hard man. He will want a receipt."
A hard man who thinks a receipt will protect him.
"A receipt," said Wang Bin. "By all means. Have the director prepare a receipt and I will sign it."
CHAPTER 13
Harold Broom arrived ten minutes early at the gleaming white mansion in the River Oaks section of Houston. He leaned against his rented Lincoln for five minutes, admiring the tall pillars and polished marble steps. At the door he was met by a Mexican houseboy in a stiff high-collared waiter's jacket, who motioned him inside. He led the art dealer up a spiral oaken staircase to a second-floor office where the customer waited.
"Well, hi there!" the Texan said. Even by Houston standards he was young for a millionaire. He wore a flannel shirt, pressed Levi's, lizardskin boots and the obligatory cowboy hat with a plume. When he shook Broom's hand, he gave a disconcerting little squeeze before he let go.
Broom sat down and said, "This is a helluva homestead."
The Texan grinned. "You like it?"
"Oh yeah." Broom noticed three king-sized television screens mounted on one wall, each flashing a different program. The corners of the office were occupied by stand-up stereo speakers. The Texan kept a video display terminal on his desk to watch the Dow Jones; behind his chair, Broom noticed, stood an arcade-sized Pac Man machine.
The Texan jerked a thumb at it. "Bored with it already," he said. "I've got an order in for an Astral Laser."
"Swell," Broom said. It was sickening: all this money and no brains. "Could I have a drink?"
"I don't see why not." The Texan poked an intercom button near the phone and shouted, "Paco! Two bourbons pronto."
"It's Pablo," a teenaged voice replied with unmasked annoyance.
The bourbon was excellent. Broom savored it, while the Texan sucked it down loudly. "Nectar," he said. "Pure nectar!"
Broom reached into the suede valise on his lap and extracted a glossy black-and-white photograph. He glanced at it before handing it across the desk to his host.
"There it is," Broom said with parental pride. "The real McCoy."
The Texan was radiant. "Broom, you've outdone yourself, I swear to God. I know better than to ask how you did it."
Broom took this as a compliment, and he forced a modest smile.
"If it arrives in this condition, it will be… awesome." The Texan clicked his teeth, as if leering at a centerfold.
Broom said, "The photograph was made moments before we packed it. I took the picture myself. That's the genuine item, and it's all yours. Guaranteed."
Pablo poured more bourbon. Broom drank up, basking in luxury and triumph. He was elated to be out of China.
"Harold," the Texan said, "I've gotta be sure. This is the only one?"
"Absolutely," Broom lied. If the Texan only knew.
"The price is-"
"Two hundred and fifty thousand now. Another two fifty on delivery. And don't worry. I'll be delivering it myself."
"You damn well better," the Texan growled, reaching for his checkbook. "For the kind of commission you're getting, Broom, you damn well ought to show up pulling a ricksha."
The xiu xi is China's most revered institution. Indeed, a worker's right to rest is enshrined in China's constitution. Nowhere does it say that all China shall sleep between noon and 2 p.m., but that is how it seems. If the Russians ever come, it will be at 1 p.m., when only the rawest Chinese recruits will be awake to oppose them. In Peking, office workers sleep on their desks. In the countryside, peasants sleep in the fields. If airplane crews find themselves on the ground at noon, they will not fly again until after lunch and a xiu xi. The more senior a cadre, the better-appointed and more private the place of his xiu xi, and the longer he sleeps.
The Disciplinary Commission had cited Wang Bin for 1 p.m. It was a calculated insult, and he knew it. At noon, Wang Bin lunched with senior aides in a private room of the staff restaurant at the Peking museum that was his headquarters.
Conversation was furtive. One or two of the men who had been with him the longest mentioned things that had occurred in the Deputy Minister's absence in the south: The Qin exhibition had been dispatched to the United States on schedule. From Xinjiang in China's desert west, the museum was to receive the mummified corpses of two soldiers perfectly preserved in the dry air these six hundred years; they would require a special room with stringent humidity controls.
Mostly, though, the aides avoided meeting Wang Bin's eyes. Their discomfort amused him. They knew. Deliberations of the Party are secrets closely held. But when the ax is about to fall, everybody knows. Peking becomes a village in those times. When the arrival of soup signaled the last course, Wang Bin pointedly looked around the table, studying his aides individually, making no secret of it. He was rewarded with the sight of six heads, bent uniformly, like acolytes, slurping their soup, seeing only the bowl. He wondered which of them had informed against him, and which would give testimony-if it came to that. The answer was obvious, and it saddened him: all of them. Poor China.