The Hamlet Murders (7 page)

On that first night, he showed up with his three
friends, one of whom was a dark-eyed girl whose anger was
so close to the surface that her face was in almost constant
motion – as if whatever boundaries she had to keep the
anger in check had been breached.

That first class we talked through some basic concepts,
did a bit of improvisation and broke down a simple text.
Then I suggested that we find scenes to work on. The girl
told me that she wanted to watch a little first. I said that
was okay but she would have to get up and perform in the
class after next. She agreed. I gave the three young men a
copy of David Mamet’s
American Buffalo
and told them
to prepare some of it for next week.

When we parted, they handed over the money for
class. As a teacher, it was something that I will never forget.
It was obvious the money they gave me, was “food
money.” As they left my apartment, I looked at the money
and thought of the responsibility it imposed on me – and to
be frank – it frightened me.

It was the beginning of my understanding that it was
no longer good enough, as a teacher, to deliver hashed-over
versions of the old acting dogma. That their “food money”
obliged me to reassess what it was I was teaching. That too
frightened me because there had been precious little, if any,
serious reassessing within the acting teaching community
for many, many years.

The following week, my Yonkers kids showed up on
time and announced that they were ready to show me
American Buffalo.
I said, sure, assuming that they had
put a few pages of the play on its feet. They started into the
play — from the top. They did the whole play cover to
cover, without a break. What they did manage to break in
the course of their performance was the mirror over the
mantelpiece, a lamp and a windowpane. When they were
finished, they turned to me as if to say: So what do you
think, Coach?

What I thought was that hunger was an important
part of being a professional actor and that these young
hungry actors deserved better understanding of their art
than there was available in the present acting texts.

That was the beginning of the thinking that led to this
book.

Three of these four aggressive young actors barged
their way into the profession. The fourth – well
. . .
anger
out of its cage – decompartmentalized, if you will – can be
terribly destructive.

That was one of the few times in my life that I have
taught beginner actors. I still don’t teach beginners and
this book is not intended for beginner actors, although if
you have enough hunger, you’ll be able to use the ideas and
methods outlined in this book to make you a better actor.

Like most good ideas, the concepts in this book are easy
to learn but may take quite a while to apply. It is easy
enough to learn the rules of chess. It takes a lifetime to gain
any mastery of the game.

Nothing of any value can be put on a 3-by-5 index card – except the thought that nothing of any value can be
put on a 3-by-5 index card.

Acting teaching can be roughly broken down into
those explorations that are about finding notes on an
actor’s piano keyboard and those explorations that are
about how to play the notes that an actor has already discovered.
This book, and my work for the past 20 years, is
primarily about how to play the notes you have found.
How to understand what the notes you have mean, which
notes are not good any longer, which have never been
good, which notes can replace bad notes, which notes are
available to you but you don’t know it – and most important
– how to finger your stops and depress your frets so
that you can play the notes you have together in a fashion
that as Hamlet says “will discourse most eloquent
music.”
(Hamlet,
Act 3, Sc. 2)

The actor’s territory is the human heart. It is an
uncharted land defended by terrifying dragons but it also
contains great glories, music and deep human truths.
To the hungry actor it is the only land worthy of
investigating.

This book attempts to give the actor a compass and
survival kit for that strange land. It includes sketch maps
and points of reference in that divine territory – whose
exploration can for the artist, and should, last a lifetime.

Fong put down the pages. Who writes an introductory chapter to a book based on the knowledge gained in a lifetime of work and then commits suicide?

The next page was blank. The page after that was not. This page was filled with Geoff’s red felt-pen scratchings. The top part of the page seemed to be an effort to write a section on “being present,” a term that Fu Tsong had often used. But that ended quickly and was replaced with a set of large angry words:
How, with her
gone? How? How the fuck without her!

Fong felt sick. He had no doubt who the “her” was that Geoff referred to. It was his dead wife and Geoff’s dead lover – Fu Tsong.

G
eoff’s death was duly noted by some of the Canadian press, but because he had done much of his work in the United States the notices were small, buried and perfunctory. Had he been either a member of one of the Old Anglo families who still ran the theatre world in Canada or had he spent six weeks in Czechoslovakia, rather than sixteen years in America, his death would have been worthy of several column inches in the entertainment sections and would no doubt have been followed by engaging eulogies delivered by middleaged ponytailed men.

One theatre that had contracted Geoff to direct in the upcoming season actually breathed a sigh of relief at his passing. The artistic director had promised his business manager a show to direct but had overlooked this obligation after the acting company raised a considerable fuss. But Geoff’s death provided the answer gift-wrapped – Geoff was gone, we had tried to get him to direct but he was gone and at this late date who could we possibly get – hey, the business manager is available – aren’t we all one big happy family again!

There was one other place in Canada that Geoff’s passing was noted – although not publicly. It was on the West Coast of the huge country on a mountaintop university campus by a handsome man in his late thirties who went by the name Richard Lee. He dressed and moved casually, but there was a real distance in his eyes. As if something far-off were the object of his attention.

That something far-off was in fact his brother, Xi Luan Tu.

Richard sat on the wooden deck on the north side of the Simon Fraser University campus and stared at the snow-covered peaks across the way. The dazzling sunlight, a rarity for this part of the world even in summer, flooded over him. He had come to Simon Fraser University because of the significant Dalong Fada presence on the campus, which allowed him to arrange for adequate security for his meeting. And therefore he sat, at the appointed hour, in the brilliant sunshine, on this campus – almost empty of people – and read the university’s promotional brochure. Richard was not interested in the university’s self-congratulatory bibble-babble about its achievements and its goals, but he found the short blurb on the history of the school’s namesake, Simon Fraser, really quite interesting. It seemed that all Mr. Fraser managed to accomplish in his life was to be the first Caucasian to enter the land that is now called British Columbia. He accomplished this overland feat in 1808 at the behest of the North West Company of Montreal. It appears, though, that the company was looking for beaver pelts, not some of the world’s most spectacular country. He had failed in his appointed task. He was a man who discovered beauty but not rodents.

A large raven, inky blue-black, fluttered to a stop on a nearby concrete ledge and looked at Richard. The bird’s sharp beak snapped open and emitted a flat caw. Richard held the bird’s eyes. Two black pebbles in a deeper darkness. In Mandarin, Richard said, “Fly away without my soul today and I will pray to you tomorrow.”

“Not a classic Dalong Fada thought,” said a sharp voice in Mandarin from behind Richard. The raven cawed loudly again and flapped its wings but maintained its roost on the post.

Richard turned toward the source of the voice. The man standing there was in his mid-to-late twenties; the results of a fairly regular attendance in a weight room were evident on his arms, chest and neck. He held a fresh croissant in one hand. He wore expensive Italian slacks and a pure linen shirt. But his feet, exposed by his ever-so-fashionable sandals, were pure Hunan peasant.

“How does a boy from the rice paddies get all the way to a university atop a mountain in Canada?” asked Richard.

“The cause. And you?”

Richard canted his head slightly to indicate that “the cause” had brought him here too, but they both knew they came for very different aspects of the cause. The two men stared at each other. The raven moved its cold eyes from one to the other.

Finally, the younger man took a bite from the croissant and said, “I got your note.”

“Good.”

“Are we betrayed?”

Richard looked away. “I don’t know. Xi Luan Tu is still in Shanghai. I don’t know if this Canadian theatre director betrayed him before they hanged him or not.”

“You’re sure he was hanged then?”

“No, I’m not sure,” he spat back then softened his tone as he continued, “but he had a cell phone with wireless Internet access programmed to get Xi Luan Tu most of the information he would need to get out of China. Mr. Hyland smuggled it into Shanghai on his first trip but never got it to Xi Luan Tu. He went back to deliver the phone as well as the money and papers he smuggled in this second time. Then he contacts us to tell us that the phone is safe but he had to jettison the money and the papers, and shortly thereafter he is swinging from a rope.” He picked up a pebble and thought of throwing it at the raven then decided to toss it over the edge of the platform. “The connective seems clear to me. Besides I don’t believe in coincidence, do you?”

“No.”

“Good. We have to move quickly now. Xi Luan Tu and many others are probably in great danger. Who knows what Mr. Hyland told the authorities before they hanged him. We must send someone else in there with the money and the papers Xi Luan Tu needs to get him out of there.”

“Do we have an operative who can manage that?”

“Yes.” Richard looked out at the mountains. “She won’t like it, but it’s time to activate her for the sake of her dead lover.”

“The fireman?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s she, now?”

“In Hong Kong.”

“Still with the police force?” the young man asked unable to hide the suspicion in his voice.

“She’s an arson investigator there, not exactly a normal cop.”

“You want me to contact her?”

“No. I’ll do it, but I want you to activate your people in Shanghai. We may need their help to rescue Xi Luan Tu.”

The younger man nodded then tossed a piece of the croissant to the raven. The bird ignored it and stared at the Chinese men as if wondering what could have brought these two to his domain.

“Fly to my brother,” Richard said in his heart. “Tell him we’re coming to get him.” To the surprise of both men the great bird cawed loudly, flapped its wings and took flight. Richard watched him ascend a thermal then head east. “From the Golden Mountain to the Middle Kingdom,” Richard thought, but said nothing.

Richard took a deep breath and allowed himself a moment of reflection. A looking back at the tumult of events that had brought him inevitably to this mountaintop university on the outskirts of Vancouver Canada. He knew that Dalong Fada is now the popular name for the movement that is one tradition within Xulian, ancient methods to cultivate the mind and keep the body healthy. Years ago, however, Xulian picked up a religious association, so groups adopted a new word for their practices –
qigong
(qi
meaning life energy and
gong
meaning cultivation of energy). But Richard realized that Dalong Fada, no matter what its name, is far more than the series of physical exercises that structure the centre of the practice. As its leader has admitted, Dalong Fada is a way of life. Its methods of insight and health for the body and mind have attracted a large and loyal following.

Every successful political movement (and since its modern inception in the early nineties, Dalong Fada has been incredibly successful, growing from a few practitioners to many millions of followers) gets to a point where it is seen as an opponent to the power structure. When that happens, those in power attack the upstart movement. The movement then splinters into those who propel its values and ideas and those who protect those values and ideas. It’s the inevitable division in any successful movement between faith and force. For the faithful, like Richard, it becomes the classic deal with the devil, in this case, the military arm of Dalong Fada, which is under the control of the young peasant from Hunan Province – the young man with the fancy clothes and open-toed sandals.

The sound of young women’s voices made Richard turn. Over by the reflecting pool with the obscenely large piece of jade in its centre, three young women had taken off their tops and hopped into the water to cool themselves. “What would they do to cool themselves off in the stifling heat and humidity that is a Shanghai summer,” Richard wondered, “remove their skins?”

The e-mail wasn’t a surprise to Joan Shui, but it threw her world into a tailspin, like a plane whose jet engine had just ingested a large bird.

It was too soon. Wu Fan-zi, her Shanghanese lover, had only been dead seven months. His birthday, which she had celebrated with Fong and the Canadian lawyer Robert Cowens, was the last time she’d been in Shanghai.

She curled in on herself. She thought for a moment about pulling out her phonebook – what she used to think of as her book of dates. Comfort, the oblivion of sex, being the object of desire seemed momentarily the only way out.

Shanghai. Fuck. She looked at her recently refurnished condo on the forty-third floor of her building on Hong Kong’s Braemar Hill Road. This was real. Shanghai was . . . she didn’t know the right word for what Shanghai was, but she really wasn’t sure that she was ready to go back there yet. Wu Fan-zi’s face would be everywhere she looked.

And this time, Fong would be the enemy.

She checked her coded e-mail message a second then a third time. They definitely wanted her in Shanghai and no doubt they knew how to get her there. There was a long list of instructions, but the gist of them was that she was to deliver money and papers that would aid in the escape of Dalong Fada’s foremost organizer – Xi Luan Tu, Richard Lee’s brother. And, by the by, China’s most wanted man.