Pyramid Asia. Ian Purdie
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was tactfully revived by Ping’s mother.
The rest of the afternoon merged seamlessly into the evening and after what Tashi considered a banquet that could have fed his entire village for a month, he and Ping were escorted up another staircase and shown into two adjoining bedrooms.
Tashi entered a sumptuously appointed boudoir. It was the type of room he imagined an ancient Chinese emperor would have felt at home inside. The bed was ornately carved teak with silk and lace bed clothes. A large bay window afforded a panoramic view of Victoria Harbor dotted with the lights of more ships than he had ever seen in any book.
His bag looked like a souvenir from a garbage tip amongst the room’s other contents. It had been placed on a velvet chair near the bed. Savouring the fact that he was alone for the first time since he’d left his dormitory that morning, Tashi fell backwards onto the bed, kicking off his sandals.
Just as his normal peasant persona was bravely reassembling itself amid the prosperity, the door swung inward. Ping entered the room. Her scent invaded him.
“I’m sorry about all that,” she said, sitting on the bed beside him.
“All what?” he asked as if luxury was a normal feature of his life.
“You know, the Chinese, Tibetan thing. My parents like you, I could tell.”
“What Chinese, Tibetan thing?” he asked, feigning cultural ignorance.
They both laughed.
“I couldn’t help noticing your family photos. You didn’t tell me you have an older brother,” said Tashi.
“He died when I was sixteen,” answered Ping. “He had a motorbike accident.”
“I’m sorry.”
“My father still hasn’t forgiven himself for letting him buy a high powered bike. He smashed himself into an oncoming car.’’
After a furtive hug, Ping was gone.
Tashi was exhausted. It had been one of the most eventful days of his life. He felt very strange as he displaced the immaculate bedding and buried himself amongst it. Sleep arrived almost instantaneously, a complete waste of the settings he occupied.
Tashi incorporated the first thud into the dream he was having. It didn’t really fit in with the wide open countryside and various chattels that were dominating his sleeping mind. The second thud woke him. The third thud was accompanied by the sound of wood splintering and was followed by footsteps that got louder until the bedroom door burst open. A bright light shone around the room before fixing itself blindingly onto him.
“What’s happening?” he muttered feebly as several more lights flooded into the room. Then he became aware of the barrels of what appeared to be very sophisticated weaponry.
“Don’t move!” commanded a gruff male voice.
“What’s happening?” he repeated.
“Shut up!” commanded the voice.
“All clear!” barked another voice before some of the lights were redirected, illuminating the silhouettes of several men leaving the room.
“Get out of bed!” commanded the voice.
“Get out of bed now!” it commanded from behind three gun barrels.
“What do you want?”
A sharp pain erupted inside his head. It was the last thing he remembered before everything went dark black.
* * *
Ping was holding Tashi’s hand. He was in bed in a room that smelled far cleaner than he was.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in hospital,” answered Ping, squeezing his hand.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” declared a female voice Tashi didn’t recognise.
“This is my friend, Aixia.”
“How’s your head?” asked the beautiful young woman behind the unrecognised voice.
“Not very good. What happened?”
Ping was uncharacteristically silent. She averted her eyes.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” repeated Aixia, executing a tactical retreat.
Ping and Aixia had been friends ‘since they were born’, as they were fond of telling anybody who asked. They had no recollection of a first meeting and for both of them their relationship had simply always been. They attended St Clare’s Girl’s School together and had only been separated by Ping’s decision to pursue a tertiary education on the mainland. Aixia’s family weren’t as affluent as Ping’s and her choices of vocation weren’t as expansive or expensive. She worked as a chemist’s assistant.
“The police raided my father’s house,” Ping replied after Aixia had left the room.
“What? Why?”
“They arrested him and took him to the police station.”
Tashi wondered what kind of strange universe he’d awoken into. It bore very little resemblance to the one he went to sleep in. Ping’s eyes met his and she began to cry.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I don’t know why they did this to you.”
“Don’t worry,” he tried to reassure her. “It must be a mistake. I’m sure everything will work out fine in the end. Where’s your mother?”
“She’s in another room. They had to sedate her. She was hysterical.”
Tashi tried to sit up but his head exploded with pain.
“Don’t try to move,” said Ping. “They nearly broke your skull.”
“I don’t understand how this could have happened,” he said feeling his bandaged head.
“They were looking for my father.”
“Why?”
Ping turned away and began sobbing again.
“Don’t cry,” said Tashi. “I’m sure they’ll sort it all out.”
“They accused him of being a heroin smuggler.”
“What?!”
“They said he was the leader of an international drug trafficking cartel.”
“There has to be a mistake,” said Tashi incredulously. “Your father wouldn’t do anything like that! Would he?”
“Of course not. He’s a businessman.”
“What kind of businessman?”
“He’s an exporter.” Ping’s answer merged with the throbbing pain in his head.
* * *
Tashi was discharged the next afternoon. His head was still bandaged and he felt dizzy every time he tried to stand up. He and Ping caught a taxi back to her father’s house.
The police had deleted a lot of the mansion’s former magnificence, dismembering several pieces of furniture and even ripping up some slaps of marble. Despite the best efforts of a veritable army of staff, it bore scant resemblance to the palace they’d been welcomed into three days earlier.
As they sat in the wreckage of the room they’d occupied with Ping’s parents the day they arrived, Tashi’s eyes strayed onto the painting that still hung defiantly in what was now a place of dishonour above the fireplace.
“Have you any idea what that’s supposed to be?” he asked.
“You asked that the other day. Why do you care about an ugly old painting?”
“I found something that looks exactly like that thing in the picture when I was a boy climbing the mountain behind