The Dragon and the Needle

The Dragon and the Needle by Hugh Franks Page A

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Authors: Hugh Franks
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There isn’t a table for us.’
    ‘Oh but there is,’ he grinned at her and the next moment a Chinese waiter was guiding them towards an empty table for two, an empty, almost isolated table away from the main restaurant. Later she was to understand why that table had been chosen. For the moment, she merely expressed surprise at getting one so easily.
    ‘How come? Chinese influence?’ She laughed nervously at her own words.
    ‘That’s a good way of putting it. Of the ten fingers some are long and some are short.’
    ‘I remember that,’ she said as they sat down. ‘It meansthat there is no absolute equality in things, and some are more equal than others. But how did you know we would come here?’
    ‘A ready bamboo is in the mind. I always have a well-thought-out plan in advance. I knew we would want to come here.’
    ‘I see you are also treating me as the guest of honour. I’m sitting opposite the door.’
    They ate with chopsticks and the customary soup was served at the end of the dinner. Conversation lapsed during the meal. The food was too good to spoil by talking. They shared a small bottle of Maotai, explosive, 120 per cent proof. Once he stood and toasted her with the words ‘Gan bei’. She raised her glass to the traditional eye level and said, ‘Cheers.’ It was all relaxed and very friendly.
    It was over the green tea, very hot and weak, without sugar or milk, taken at the end of the meal, that they talked again. He asked her more questions about her work. There was a loud background of noise in the restaurant; even so, she kept her voice at a low pitch.
    ‘Why did you say to me, “Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy”?’ she asked.
    He smiled at her and answered, ‘Because we both knew that would get us together.’
    She did not smile back, and replied, ‘You knew then what CTTM means? It came into being after the uprising in Beijing.’
    He nodded and said, ‘You expressed support for CTTM during your days in China.’ She stared at him as he continued, ‘You left soon after that.’
    Eleanor frowned. ‘Yes,’ she said. Then her voice sharpened. ‘What is it that you want of me?’
    For an instant his aura of charm vanished. She became aware of a Chinese man with a merciless smile. She had met the type in Beijing, the fanatical communist type. But the expression faded as quickly as it had appeared.
    ‘Want of you?’
    She gave him a stony stare and held back, refraining from speaking, playing the game the Chinese love themselves to play: asking questions instead of replying to them.
    ‘The gap between different kinds of work is as wide as if separated by mountains,’ she said in Chinese, then repeated her words in English. ‘The outsider knows no more of the secrets of our calling, than he knows of another country, does he?’
    He frowned and said, ‘I am not expecting a mosquito to carry a mountain on its back, I am not asking you to attempt anything impossible, I am also not sure whether you can keep your mouth shut like a bottle.’ He smiled, thinly.
    ‘What you are saying is that when a word is out it belongs to another,’ she said. ‘I do not pass on information about my patients. I do not believe you would have arranged to see …’ She paused, looked around the restaurant, went on, ‘… to see me so extravagantly, if you had thought you could not trust me.’
    He glanced sideways at her. ‘Are you so sure that your late husband was murdered?’
    She gave him a startled glance. ‘Why, I …’ She fell into silence.
    ‘You never did see his face, did you? He was identified by a colleague. You were in such a state of shock, you said you did not want to see him.’
    Her mind was in a whirl. He was telling the truth. Chen’s face had been so badly beaten that she was persuaded by his closest friend not to look at it. She had seen the covered body and kissed his hands. One thing was certain, she had not seen her husband’s face.
    She stared at him. ‘I did not see his

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