Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [1]
After they had refreshed themselves with baths and food, the Mandarin called for his automobile, a long, elegant, jade-green Rolls-Royce, and drove with Lysandra to the Lai Tsin headquarters, a towering pillared building spanning the block between Queens and Des Voeux roads.
Taking the child by the hand, the Mandarin showed her the bronze lions flanking the entrance, the magnificent reception hall with the walls and floors paved in different colored marbles, the tall columns in his favorite malachite, the jade sculptures, the mosaics, and the carvings. Then he walked with her to each office, introducing her to every member of the staff from the lowliest cleaner to the highest taipan in the powerful Lai Tsin empire. Lysandra bowed respectfully to each one, saying nothing and listening carefully, as she had been instructed by her grandfather.
At the end of the day her eyes were blank with fatigue, but all was not yet finished. Ignoring his chauffeur the Mandarin summoned a rickshaw, and followed slowly by the elegant automobile, they jolted through the busy streets. The rickshaw man wound his way expertly through a labyrinth of narrow alleys to a seedy waterfront area, leaving the chauffeur and the car stranded far behind. Finally, after what seemed an eternity to the tired Lysandra, he stopped in front of a faded wooden shack roofed in corrugated tin. She looked questioningly at her grandfather as he stepped from the rickshaw and held out his hand to her.
“Come, Little Granddaughter,” he said calmly. “This is what I have brought you all this way to see. This is where the Lai Tsin fortune began.”
She held his hand tightly as he walked to the scarred wooden door, noticing that though it seemed flimsy, it was held by thick metal hinges and fastened with strong locks. The structure had been shored up with bricks and repaired with newer wood and there were spiked metal grilles across the small, high-set windows.
“Only fire could destroy the Lai Tsin godown,” the Mandarin said, his soft voice full of confidence, “and that will never happen.” Lysandra knew he believed the old warehouse would never burn because the fortune-teller, whom he consulted every week, had told him long ago that though there would be fire, nothing of his would ever be harmed again.
The Mandarin rapped twice on the wooden door. After a few seconds there was the sound of strong bolts being drawn and the door was pulled slowly back. A smiling Chinese man of about forty years bowed low as he bid them enter.
“Honorable Father, please enter with Little Granddaughter,” he said in Chinese.
The Mandarin’s face lit with a smile as he embraced the man, then they stood back and looked searchingly at each other.
“It’s good to see you,” the Mandarin said, but from the sadness in his eyes they both knew it would be for the last time. “This is my son, Philip Chen,” he told Lysandra. “I call him my son because he came into our household when he was even younger than you. He was an orphan and still young and unformed and he became like my own child. Now he is my comprador. He takes care of all the Lai Tsin business here in Hong Kong and he is the only man in the world I trust.”
Lysandra’s blue eyes widened and she stared interestedly back at the man as the Mandarin took her hand and walked with her through the long, narrow warehouse. Its shelves were dusty and empty, lit by a single naked light bulb swinging gently on the end of a long flex. Lysandra peered nervously into the shadowy corners, jumping back suddenly as her eyes met another’s; but it wasn’t the rat or fierce dragon she had been expecting, it was a young Chinese boy.
Philip Chen said proudly, “Sir, may I have the honor to present my son, Robert.”
The boy bowed low as the old man inspected him.
“When I last saw you, you were three years old,” the Mandarin said quietly, “and now you are ten—almost a young