CHAPTER TEN

TYERSALL PARK, SINGAPORE

“Which bottle?” Jiayi asked in Cantonese as she stood on the third-highest step of the wooden rolling ladder.

“Um…look for any bottle from before 1950,” Ah Ling instructed.

The maid squinted her eyes at the ancient yellowing labels affixed to the front of the large glass canisters, looking at the dates. She remembered going to a fancy herbal shop in Shenzhen when she was a teenager and seeing one precious golden tin of yen woh in a locked glass cabinet in the pride of place behind the cash register. Her mother had explained that the container was full of edible bird’s nest—one of the most expensive delicacies in China. Now she was looking at an entire shelving unit lined with them. “I can’t believe that all these bottles are filled with yen woh. It must be worth a fortune!”

“That is why we keep this larder under lock and key,” Ah Ling said. “All of these bottles came from Mrs. Young’s father. Mr. Shang owned a company that supplied the finest yen woh in Asia, taken from the most prized caves in Borneo.”

“Is this how they became so rich?”

“Hiyah, you can’t build a fortune like the Shangs’ on yen woh alone. This was just one of the many companies Mr. Shang owned.”

The maid climbed down from the ladder hugging a huge bottle almost as big as her entire torso. She stared through the musty glass at what looked like dried white husks, marveling at the precious treasure inside. “Have you ever tried it?”

“Of course. Mrs. Young always has a bowl prepared for me on my birthday.”

“What does it taste like?”

“I can’t quite describe it…it’s like nothing you’ve ever had. It’s more about the texture…it’s sort of like snow fungus, but much more delicate. But here, Ah Ching makes it into a dessert soup. She cooks it in a double boiler with dried longan and rock sugar for forty-eight hours, and then puts shaved ice over it. It’s marvelous. Now, third rack from the bottom on that shelf over there. Get me three cups of dried longan,” Ah Ling instructed, as she carefully marked the amount of bird’s nest she had taken out of the canister in a ledger book.

“Whose birthday is it now?” Jiayi asked.

“Nobody’s. But Mrs. Young’s brother Alfred Shang is coming over for Friday-night dinner. And we know how much he likes yen woh.”

“So he gets to have it whenever he wants?”

“Of course! This used to be his house too, you know.”

“Life is so unfair…” Jiayi muttered as she strained to open the lid of the bottle of dried longans.

There was a knock on the door, and Vikram, the head of security, poked his head in and smiled at Ah Ling. “There you are! Ah Tock said you were down in the larder, but he didn’t say which one. I searched two other larders before finding you!”

“I only ever come to the dried-goods larder, because only I have the key. The other larders I never bother with. What do you need?”

Vikram eyed the young maid scooping out the dried longans into a bowl and said to the housekeeper, “May I have a few minutes of your time after you’re done with this?”

Ah Ling looked over at Jiayi. “Take everything up to Ah Ching now. And maybe if you are very nice to her, she will let you have a little taste of the yen woh on Friday.”

As soon as the maid had left the room, Ah Ling asked in a slightly weary tone, “What is the problem today?”

“Well, I’ve been going through something in my mind for the last couple of days,” Vikram began. “You know how Joey’s been out on leave since his mother’s surgery? Well, I took over his patrol schedule myself, and the other day while I was on the roof, I overheard something rather interesting coming from Mrs. Young’s balcony.”

Ah Ling’s ears perked up. “What was so interesting?”

“It was Eddie Cheng talking to his mother. From what I could gather, it sounds like Mrs. Young never said she didn’t want to see Nicky. I think Eddie made it all up.”

Ah Ling cracked a smile. “I suspected this all along. Su Yi has never banned anyone from the house before, and surely not Nicky of all people.”

“I felt it was wrong too, but what could I say? Clearly Eddie has an agenda of his own, and he’s the one who has instigated this ban on Nicky. And Victoria has fallen for his ploy.”

“What did Alix have to say? I’m surprised she’s going along with it—mother and son are usually at loggerheads.”

“She didn’t say much. He was so busy screaming at her, the poor woman could hardly get a word in. Apparently Eddie has held a grudge against his mother for a very long time because she won’t massage his buttocks.”

“Whaaaat?” Ah Ling made a face.

Vikram couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. “Yes, I know, strange family. What can you expect—they’re Hong Kongers. Anyway, Alix tried to reason with Eddie, but he’s determined to make sure Nicky doesn’t get to see Mrs. Young at all. He’s gotten it into his fat head that he alone will inherit Tyersall Park—that’s why he’s been planting himself outside her bedroom for the past two days like a Doberman. He’s not letting anyone in who will ruin his plan!”

“Sek si gau!” Ah Ling muttered angrily.

Vikram peeked out of the larder door for a moment to see if there was anyone within earshot before continuing in a lower voice. “Now, from what I understand, Mrs. Young thinks that Nicky had to cancel his trip because of the Intergalactic Wars. She has been kept completely in the dark, and has no idea he’s even back on the island. Astrid is being kept away too, and you know none of those daughters are going to tell her anything. We need to do something about this!”

Ah Ling let out a long sigh. “I don’t know if we can interfere. This is a family matter. I don’t like to get mixed up in their quarrels. And I especially don’t want either of us to get in trouble for this…after Su Yi is gone.”

“Mrs. Young isn’t…going anywhere!” Vikram sputtered.

“Vikram, we both have to face it…I don’t think Su Yi is going to last much longer. I see her waning day by day. And we have no idea who’s going to get control of Tyersall Park. God forbid, it could be Eddie. We need to be extra careful, especially now. I’ve seen what has happened before in this family. You weren’t around when T’sien Tsai Tay passed away. My God, the drama!”

“I think there’s going to be drama no matter what. But you practically raised Nicky—don’t you want to see him get the house?”

Ah Ling gestured for Vikram to follow her to the back of the larder. “Of course I do,” she whispered.

“We both know it would be ideal if Nicky is the new master of Tyersall Park. He is our best hope to keep things just the way they are. That’s why we have to do what we can to make sure he gets to see Mrs. Young.”

“But what can we do? How are we going to get Nicky into the house and into her bedroom without the whole family knowing about it? Without losing our jobs?”

Vikram felt a lump in his throat, but he continued to speak. “Ah Ling, I swore an oath—a Gurkha’s oath—to protect and serve Mrs. Young with my life. I feel like I would be betraying her if I didn’t see that her wishes are followed. You just confirmed that she wants to see Nicky, right?”

Ah Ling nodded. “I have a feeling she’s hanging on to see him.”

“Well, it’s my duty to make sure that happens. Even if I lose my job.”

“You are an honorable man,” Ah Ling said as she sat down on a wooden stool, momentarily lost in a thought. She gazed up at the rows and rows of glass bottles containing the world’s rarest foods—wild mountain ginseng, preserved abalone, caterpillar fungus—precious herbs that had been stored here since before World War II, suddenly remembering one afternoon back in the early eighties…

Su Yi had taken out a leather box from the vault filled with old medals that she wanted Ah Ling to polish with extra care. Most of them were honors given over the years to Su Yi’s husband—his Order of the British Empire badge, a medal from the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, various decorations from Malay royals—but one medal stood out: an eight-point Maltese cross made of pewter, and at its center was a large amethyst.

“What did Dr. Young receive this medal for?” Ah Ling asked, holding up the translucent gemstone to the light.

“Oh, that wasn’t his. This was given to me after the war by the queen. Don’t bother to polish that,” Su Yi answered.

“How come I never knew you were honored by the queen?”

Su Yi huffed dismissively. “It wasn’t very significant to me. Why would I care what the Queen of England thinks? The British abandoned us during World War II. Instead of sending more troops to defend the colony that helped to make them rich, they retreated like cowards and wouldn’t even leave us with real weapons. So many young men—my cousins, my half brothers—died trying to hold back the Japanese.”

Ah Ling nodded her head gravely. “So what did you get this medal for?”

Su Yi gave her a wry smile. “One night during the height of the occupation, I got careless. I was in the Botanic Gardens with a small group of friends, and none of us should have been there. The island was under curfew, and the gardens were locked up in the evenings—they were especially out of bounds. A patrol of Kempeitai—the vicious Japanese military police—came out of nowhere and surprised us. Now, a few of my friends couldn’t risk getting caught by the Japanese—they were already on the wanted list—so I let them flee and allowed myself to be caught. I had protection papers, you see. Our family friend Lim Boon Keng had gotten me a special badge that was marked ‘Overseas Chinese Liaison Officer,’ and this meant that I could go about the island unmolested by the soldiers.

“But these soldiers didn’t buy my story—I told them that we were all just good friends out on a lark, but they still arrested me and took me to their commanding officer. When I saw I was being taken to a certain house on Dalvey Estate, I remember getting very anxious—this colonel was known for his brutality. He once shot a young boy on the street just because the boy didn’t salute him in the correct manner. And here I was about to face him after committing a big offense.

“When we got to the front door, some soldiers were coming out carrying a body that was covered by a bloody sheet. I thought it was all over for me then, that I was about to be raped or shot, or maybe both. My heart was racing a mile a minute. They dragged me into this sitting room, where I came upon the most unexpected sight. The colonel was this tall, elegant man sitting at the grand piano playing Beethoven. I stood there just watching him perform the entire piece, and when he had finished, for some reason I decided to speak first, something you were never supposed to do. I said to him, ‘The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major is one of my favorites.’

“The colonel turned and gave me this piercing stare and said in perfect English, ‘You’re familiar with this piece? You know the piano? Play something for me.’

“He got up from the stool, and I sat down at the piano absolutely petrified, knowing what I chose to play could mean the difference between life and death. So I took a deep breath and thought, if I’m about to die, this is what I want to play. Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune.’

“I played my heart out, and when I finished, I looked up from the piano and saw that there were tears in his eyes. It turns out that before the war, he had been in the diplomatic corps in Paris. Debussy was his favorite. He let me go, and twice a week for the next year, he made me come over to his house and play the piano for him.”

Ah Ling shook her head incredulously at the story. “You were very lucky to get away like that. How did you and your friends get in to the Botanic Gardens in the first place?”

Su Yi gave her a sphinxlike smile, as if she was trying to decide whether or not to let her in on something. And then she shared her secret.

Emerging from the memory of Su Yi’s story, an idea began to form in Ah Ling’s mind. She looked up at Vikram and said, “There is a secret about this house that even you don’t know. Something from the war times.”

Vikram looked at her in surprise.

Ah Ling continued, “Now, don’t you have connections in the Khoo household?”

“Sure, I know their head of security very well.”

“This is what I need you to do…”

Nick and Colin were spending the afternoon hanging out at Red Point Record Warehouse on Playfair Road, where they had spent countless hours listening to obscure records back when they were teenagers. As Nick flipped through the meticulously organized bins, he called out to Colin, “Did you know that the Cocteau Twins collaborated with Faye Wong?”

“No way!”

“Take a look at this,” Nick said, handing him a record. While Colin read the liner notes to a rare EP recorded by the Hong Kong diva titled The Amusement Park, his phone buzzed with a text message. He glanced at the screen and read a message from Aloysius Pang—the head of his family’s security team—summoning him to his father’s house to pick up a package ASAP. Colin wondered what this was all about, as it was highly uncharacteristic of Aloysius to summon him like this.

“Hey Nick, I need to run over to my dad’s place to pick up something that’s apparently quite urgent. Do you want to stay here or come with?”

“I’ll come along. If I stay any longer I’ll just end up buying the whole store,” Nick replied.

The two of them sped over to Colin’s father’s house on Leedon Road, a stately Georgian mansion that looked like it had been transported straight out of Bel Air, California.

“Jeez, it’s been years since I’ve been here,” Nick remarked as they entered the house through the front door. A grandfather clock ticked loudly in the circular foyer, and all the curtains in the formal living room had been closed to block out the afternoon sun. “Is anyone home?”

“My dad and stepmom are on a safari in Kenya at the moment,” Colin answered, as a Filipino maid appeared from the corridor.

“Is Aloysius here?”

“No, but there’s a package for you, Sir Colin,” the woman replied. She went into the kitchen and returned moments later with a large padded envelope that didn’t bear the markings of any courier service.

“Who dropped this off?” Colin asked.

“Sir, Mr. Pang, sir.”

He ripped open the envelope, and inside was a smaller manila envelope that was stamped PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL. There was a Post-it affixed to the front of it. Colin looked up at Nick in surprise. “This package isn’t for me—it’s for you!”

“Really?” Taking the package, Nick saw that the Post-it note read:

Please give this letter by hand to your friend Nicholas Young.

It is imperative that he receives it by tonight.

“Well this is convenient! I guess whoever sent this knows I’m crashing at your place,” Nick said as he began tearing into the sealed envelope.

“Wait! Wait! Are you sure you want to do that?” Colin said.

“Why not?”

Colin glanced suspiciously at the package. “I dunno…what if there’s anthrax or something in there?”

“I don’t think my life is as exciting as that. But here, why don’t you open it?”

“Fuck no.”

Nick laughed as he continued to open the envelope. “Has anyone told you that you have an overactive imagination?”

“Dude, I’m not the one getting mysterious packages delivered to my best friend’s house!” Colin said, taking a few steps back.

Cantonese for “shit-eating bastard.”