The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [18]
“China’s metaphor, as well, I think,” Neal said, grateful that Joe Graham wasn’t there to hear him.
Neal and Olivia slowly examined the paintings, Olivia translating the titles from Chinese: Black and White Streams Meet; Pool With Ice Melting; On Silkworm’s Eyebrow—this last showing a narrow trail up a steep slope beneath the reflection of a rainbow.
Then they came to the painting. A gigantic precipice was shown reflected in what seemed to be the fog and mist of the bottomless chasm below. On the edge of the cliff sat a painter, a young woman with a blue ribbon in her hair, looking down into the chasm, and her mirror image—the saddest face Neal had ever seen—stared back up from the mists. It was Li Lan’s metaphor: a woman sitting serenely with her art and at the same time also lost in an abyss.
The face in the mists was the focal point, and it drew Neal’s eye down and in, down and in, falling off the precipice until he felt as if he were trapped in the abyss, looking back up at the face of the painter, up the impossibly steep cliff. In the cool of the northern California dusk his hands began to sweat.
“What’s this one called?” he asked.
“The Buddha’s Mirror.”
“It’s incredible.”
“Li Lan is incredible.”
“How well do you know her?”
Yeah, lady, how well? Well enough to tell me where she is? Who she’s with?
“She stays with us when she’s in the States.”
Careful, Neal, he told himself. Let’s be nice and careful.
“She’s not a local, then?”
“To Hong Kong, she is. I’d say she comes over here every couple of years or so.”
“Is she here now?” he heard himself ask, wondering as he said it if he was moving too quickly.
He felt more than saw Olivia Kendall’s curious stare and kept his eyes focused on the painting.
“Yes, she is,” Olivia said carefully.
What the hell, he decided, let’s roll the big dice.
“I have a great idea,” Neal said. “Let me take all of us out to dinner. Mr. Kendall, as well. Is there a Mr. Kendall?”
Olivia looked at him real hard for a second and then started to laugh.
“Yes, there is definitely a Mr. Kendall. There is also a Mr. Li, so to speak.”
“I’m afraid I don’t catch your drift.”
Okay, okay. Just tell me that she’s otherwise engaged, all right?
“Are you interested in her paintings or in her? Not that I blame you—she’s drop-dead gorgeous.” She reached out and patted his arm. “Sorry. You’re a little young, and she’s very involved.”
Bingo.
Okay, Neal, he told himself—think. How about The Book of Joe Graham, Chapter Three, Verse Fifteen: “Tell people what they want to hear, and they’ll believe it. Most people aren’t naturally suspicious like you and me. They only see one layer deep. You make that top layer look real, you’re home free.”
He looked Olivia Kendall right in the eyes, always a useful thing to do when you’re lying.
“Ms. Kendall,” he said, “these are the most beautiful paintings I’ve ever seen. Meeting their creator would make me very happy.”
She was an art lover, and he was counting on that. She wanted to believe that a young man could find art so moving that he had to meet the artist. He knew it had far less to do with her perception of him than with her perception of herself.
“You’re very sweet,” she said, “but I’m afraid we have plans. In fact, Lan is making dinner tonight. Some Chinese home cooking.”
“I’ll bring my own chopsticks….”
“Seriously, who are you?”
“That’s a complicated question.”
“Shall we begin with an easy one? What’s your name?”
That’s not as easy as you might think, Olivia. My mother gave me the “Neal,” and we just sort of settled on the “Carey.”
“Neal Carey.”
“Now that wasn’t so hard. And what do you do, Neal Carey, when you aren’t inviting yourself to dinner?”
“I’m a graduate student at Columbia University.”
“In …”
“New York.”
“I meant what’s your major?