Ava gravitated towards the women at the other end of the bar. The youngest looked to be in her forties. Aside from May Ling, they were all wearing floor-length designer dresses and dripping with platinum, gold, diamonds, and jade. The other women eyed Ava, in her pink Brooks Brothers shirt and black slacks, with either suspicion or disdain.
“This is Ms. Ava Lee,” May Ling said. “She is here to help us with a project.”
A few of the women nodded at her while the others continued their conversations. Ava could feel May Ling’s eyes on her again and was about to say something when their hostess said, “It’s time to sit, ladies.”
May Ling lightly touched Ava’s elbow, guiding her to the enormous dining room table, and whispered, “It is General Pan’s birthday that we are here to celebrate.”
The general sat to the right of Wong, and Uncle to the left. Ava was directly across from them, sandwiched between two wives. At each place setting was a gold-plated Dupont lighter and a pack of Dunhill cigarettes. The women on either side of her lit cigarettes, and Uncle and most of the other men did the same. He looked at her across the table, a tiny smile tugging at his lips. You are in China now, he mouthed.
The meal was served with almost military precision; each dish was brought out to a side table and served at the exact moment when the previous dish was finished. It was a meal designed to show respect, a parade of the most expensive, top-quality food. Shark fin soup. Whole abalone. Jumbo prawns in chili sauce. Slivers of filet mignon. Crispy pigeon. Fukin rice. A live fish that must have weighed two kilograms was brought to Wong before being prepared. He tapped the fish on its chin with a chopstick. The mouth flapped up and down. That redefines fresh, Ava thought. To end the meal, long boiled noodles were served with sesame paste.
Four glasses were placed in front of each guest. One held cognac, another beer, the third wine, and the fourth maotai, a Chinese liquor made from fermented sorghum. Two servers with a bottle in each hand were in constant circulation behind the diners. This is sophisticated China, Ava thought.
Once all the courses had been served, one of the servers brought out a huge mango cake with one lit candle. A magnum of Dom Perignon was opened and the group sang “Happy Birthday.” Red pockets — small envelopes filled with cash — were passed to the general.
The Wongs invited their guests to retreat to the karaoke room. Ava sat quietly for an hour as the guests became increasingly drunk and more adventuresome in their song choices. Out went the Chinese revolutionary marching songs and in came Rod Stewart, Elton John, and Celine Dion. In the midst of a murderous rendition of a Joe Cocker-Jennifer Warnes duet, May Ling slipped into the seat next to her. “Come upstairs with me,” she said, her hand sliding into Ava’s.
Wong and Uncle had already left without Ava noticing.
They rode the elevator in silence to the eighth floor. “Over here,” May Ling said to Ava when the elevator doors opened, directing her to the right.
Wong and Uncle were standing in the middle of a huge foyer, looking at a large glass case that showcased some of the most beautiful Chinese ceramics Ava had ever seen. Wong looked over at her, and Ava saw a tension in him that she hadn’t noticed before.
“We started collecting these about fifteen years ago,” May Ling said. “The paintings came a little later.”
The other cases in the room were in small lit alcoves. They housed more ceramics, some earthenware vessels, and several small statues, many of Buddha.
“I don’t see any paintings,” Ava said.
“Come with me,” May Ling said.
They walked through a door at the far end of the foyer and into a cauldron of intense colour.
Twenty paintings hung on the walls of a tiny room not more than six metres across. Its diminutive size seemed to add to the intensity of the colours in the paintings, none of which were Chinese. Ava felt as if her senses were under attack.
“Wong Changxing was in London as part of a trade mission and they were taken on a tour of the Tate Gallery. You’ve heard of the Tate?”
“I’ve been there.”
“Well, he went and he fell in love.”
“I don’t understand.”
May Ling pulled her towards one wall. “Have you heard of the Fauves?”
“No.”
“It means ‘wild beasts.’ It was a French art movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. As you can see, the artists were in love with colour and were famous for their bold brushwork.”
Ava walked up to one of the paintings and looked down at the signature. “Matisse?”
“Yes, these are all supposedly by Matisse,” May Ling said. She turned and pointed to another wall. “And over there, Andre Derain, Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy, Maurice de Vlaminck, and, of course, our Monet.”
“This is spectacular.”
Uncle and Wong Changxing entered the room. Ava saw surprise register on her boss’s face, while the tension she had detected in Wong’s was now ripping across his.
“When my husband came back to Wuhan,” May Ling continued, “he told me about the paintings he had seen and how much he loved them. He bought some art books, and though he couldn’t read them because they were in English or French, he used to stay up at night, poring over them as if he was looking at pictures of his children. I started looking into the movement myself, and I began to share his passion for the Fauvists. It was the colour and the simplicity of the paintings that attracted him, and then me.
“I bought the first one — that Derain painting of the Tower Bridge in London — for his birthday. He was upset with me for spending so much money, but after I explained what a good investment I thought it would be, we decided to buy more. Our little gallery here became the largest private Fauvist collection outside of Europe.
“Our Chinese friends never saw the sense in it and didn’t appreciate them. Among the Westerners, though, it changed their perception of Wong Changxing. He was no longer just another newly rich Chinese businessman, a man with no education, no breeding, no manners.”
“This is such a beautiful collection,” Ava said. “It does speak well of its owners.”
May Ling exhaled and then seemed to struggle to catch her breath. “Except — many of these paintings are fakes.”
Ava turned to look at Uncle. His face was impassive.
“Fakes?” Ava said.
“Yes, forgeries.”
Wong Changxing opened his mouth as if to speak, but nothing came out. He waved an arm at the paintings. “Fakes!” he finally yelled, his arm rotating like a windmill, his eyes squeezed shut in rage.
“Can we go somewhere to sit and talk?” Uncle said.
May Ling looped her arm through Wong Changxing’s. “Calm,” she said.
They walked through the living quarters and entered a kitchen. It was a Chinese kitchen that could have been found in a hundred million homes: a small round table with four chairs, a standard fridge and oven, and on the counter a rice cooker and hot water Thermos.
“Your guests?” Ava asked.
“They’ll sing and drink for another four hours,” May Ling said.
“What happened with the paintings?” Uncle asked.
Wong Changxing banged his fist on the table.
“Calm,” May Ling said again to her husband, resting her hand on his arm. She turned to Uncle and Ava. “It began when I bought the first one. I was ignorant about how to proceed, so I went to the art dealer in Hong Kong who helped us acquire our ceramics — they are genuine, by the way. I talked to him about the Fauvists and asked him to find me one. He called me in two months, saying he had located the Derain in a private collection in Switzerland and that it was ours if we wanted to pay the price. I did. When it got here, we loved it and we decided to buy more. I commissioned the dealer to do exactly that.”
“ We commissioned,” Wong Changxing said.
“Yes, sorry, we did make the decision together. His name — the dealer — was Kwong Kan and his gallery was near Lan Kwai Fong. We told him to call us whenever a Fauvist painting came on the market. Over the following years we bought the twenty you just saw. Braque. Dufy. Matisse. More Derain. Vlaminck. And the Monet, which cost fifteen million dollars. Then two years ago our dealer died — cancer — and we took a break.
