Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [132]
They looked at the piece of paper that told the land was his, hardly believing it was true. Nearby was Chater Road and Statue Square, a few blocks behind them rose Victoria Peak with the palatial Government House and above it the green stretches of the botanical gardens and the rich villas of the taipans in the mid-levels. And all around them stood solid, impressive office buildings.
They stared at each other and knew that what had been a simple, cheap plot of land surrounded by wooden go-downs and mat sheds when Chung Wu’s grandfather had bought it for eighty dollars many years before, was now a prime piece of real estate. “We’re standing on a fortune,” Francie gasped. “You could sell this tomorrow, Lai Tsin, and retire a very rich man.”
He shook his head, his eyes full of the vision of a tall, white, many-windowed building with the name of the Lai Tsin Corporation emblazoned in big brass letters. He saw a geomancer placing it so as to receive the best fang shui and he saw bronze lions outside guarding their good joss. He said, “We will not make our fortune from selling. This is the place on which we will build our fortune.”
They took a rickshaw down to the docks and then a lighter out into the bay, where the ship had already loaded its cargo and was ready to sail on the noon tide. He pointed to the prow, where the name FRANCIE I had been painted. “It will be the first of our fleet,” he said, as they strode the decks inspecting it proudly. “And it is all because of you.”
He gave her an envelope and said, “I have a second gift for you which I bought with the first money I made five years ago, and kept it until you were ready. Now it is yours.”
Francie opened the envelope, exclaiming in surprise when she saw what it was: the title to a plot of land on Nob Hill, just a block away from her old home on the opposite side of California Street.
Lai Tsin said, “Soon you will be back in San Francisco. You cannot go on hiding forever because of your brother. You can no longer think of yourself as the worthless daughter and the sister forever in his shadow. You will be at the mercy of no one. One day soon you will build your house on proud Nob Hill and show the world your face again. And there will be nothing Harry Harrison can do about it.”
Lai Tsin sailed for San Francisco on the noon tide. Francie was to leave early the following morning. She spent her final day with Edward. He took her to the songbird market where thousands of twittering thrushes and canaries fluttered in little bamboo cages to be sold as pets. And Sammy Morris padded softly behind them in his tattered cotton coolie shoes; he followed them through the noisy alleys of Kowloon, past open-fronted stores, little more than holes in the wall selling buckets of squid floating in their black ink, platters of gray shrimp and tanks of silver-scaled fishes swimming exhaustedly to and fro, searching for the freedom that would only come with their death. He lingered while they inspected the stalls of the craftsmen carving chops, the seals that appeared on every document in China, and the calligraphers painting exquisitely on thin rice paper. His burning eyes never left them as they passed the shoemaker and the candlemaker and the women embroidering fine linen. He waited patiently while they dined in a simple teahouse on steamed dim sum and fragrant green tea, and he told himself that if necessary he would wait forever for his revenge.
They took the little tram up the Peak to view all Hong Kong and its islands, watching as the mist rolled in, just like in San Francisco. And they laughed, feeling as if they were almost standing on their heads as they took the tramway back down the steep incline.
Edward glanced briefly at the poor coolie waiting at the bottom of the Peak Tramway, flinging him a coin as he summoned a rickshaw to take them back to the hotel, then looked back at him, surprised as they drove away; he could swear it was not a Chinese face he had seen.
It was their last