May Chen’s apartment overlooked the harbour. The company she worked for, Shoughan International, was majority owned by the Chinese government. They had projects all over the world.
The food was simple and elegant. May had invited the businessman Henry Liu and Andrew Wong, head of the China–Australia Relations Institute, both of whom I’d met at the lunch at the winery before Christmas. It was just the four of us.
May raised her glass before we all commenced lunch and said, ‘I thought that this was a good opportunity to get to know one another a little better. We spend all our time in meetings … so, Astrid, we are keen to know more about you.’
Not a topic I’m good at, but I have the required patter. Still, I kept wondering when it was going to come up.
And then, after the main course, Andrew Wong said, ‘I heard we had a tragedy, Astrid. On the bridge.’
I looked at May and she nodded almost imperceptibly.
‘Your discretion is valued,’ said Wong. ‘We want to reassure you that his family has been compensated. It is taken care of. There will be no further events of this nature, you can be assured.’
A son in China is a very valuable thing. If he had been under forty years of age, he may have been the one child his mother had been allowed to have. Or keep.
Were they all Beijing operatives? Wong, of course. May Chen almost certainly. MSS or 3PLA, China’s two branches of secret service. But Henry Liu? Henry Liu was a man trying to escape something, and it may have been the Chinese Communist Party. If so, why was he here, and not a hundred miles from May Chen and this bridge?
Wong had to excuse himself at the end of lunch to catch a flight to Melbourne, and so it was just the three of us. I was still wondering why this lunch had taken place here and not in a restaurant. Was Chen trying to disarm me? Was it all being recorded? There was another agenda, clearly.
May took me on a tour of the apartment, showing me her collection of fifty rare Japanese prints detailing a walk from Tokyo to Kyoto six hundred years before. When we re-joined Henry, he had made tea. He suggested we take it out onto the balcony. The balcony caught the afternoon sun and was furnished with soft-cushioned couches. Across the harbour an enormous white cruise liner was moored, dwarfing every building on the waterfront.
The balcony was entirely private and, but for a very long lens on the deck of that cruise liner, this was a balcony fit for private purpose. Perhaps it was also free of recording devices. If I was about to have the ‘other’ conversation, I wondered what it might be.
Henry presented me with a large wrapped gift.
‘For the new year,’ he said.
I opened it to find a framed watercolour of the view from my home. It was strikingly beautiful.
‘Where did you get it?’ I asked.
‘I painted it,’ he said. ‘I like that hill above your house.’
‘Ah,’ I said. So he knew about my house. It was Hobart. Word got around. Word got around even faster on Bruny, even if Henry’s place was at Cloudy Bay and I was on Dennes Point fifty kilometres away. Still, was this picture a warning? We are watching you.
‘You didn’t include the bridge,’ I said.
‘It’s a very precise moment in time,’ he said. ‘I did this painting several years ago before the bridge was announced. I had it framed for you when I realised where you lived on Bruny.’
‘You are a wonderful artist, Henry,’ I said.
‘He is,’ said May. ‘It’s what he really loves about Tasmania. He has time to paint.’
‘I want to be like Winston Churchill and spend eternity mastering watercolour,’ said Henry. ‘Because a lifetime isn’t long enough.’
‘How do you feel about the bridge, Henry?’ I asked.
Henry paused.
‘He feels the same way I feel about it,’ said May.
‘But I have the luxury of being able to voice my opinions,’ said Henry.
‘Perhaps a better question,’ said May, ‘is how we both feel about Tasmania.’
‘So how do you both feel about Tasmania?’
Henry said, ‘When I first arrived, I kept wondering when it would all go wrong, and I would wake up to find it crowded and polluted with no blue sky. But it hasn’t gone wrong. It’s so quiet at night I feel I can hear creation. When I first left China it was to go to the University of Chicago. My apartment was tiny, at the back of a building, but even in Chicago, and in my own tiny place where no-one else lived, it was the first time in my life I really heard silence. And it was Chicago! So here—here—it’s as if this is where they invented sound.’ He smiled and I nodded.
‘There is a Chinese saying,’ he continued, ‘“When you drink the water, remember the spring.” I think Tasmanians are lovely people. Generous. Kind. But they do not keep enough of an eye on the spring. When I left home, I didn’t know there were places that were uncrowded. If the thing that makes you unique can be protected, then that is what Tasmanians must do.’
May said, ‘We both came here with very different ideas. I am here—like you, Astrid—to ensure the bridge project proceeds with maximum ease and community support. But my loyalty …’ She hesitated. ‘Our government is not known for its benevolence. If it sends workers, if it offers special prices on steel, if it aligns with the Australian government, the Tasmanian government, then there is a very substantial reason. The Bruny Bridge is very important.’
‘What does this bridge have to do with the Belt and Road Initiative?’ I asked. ‘This is not a key location in the world’s shipping or transport. There are no resources, at least not that we know about.’
‘Of course, water will be much more valuable than coal or zinc soon enough,’ said May.
‘The bridge is something to do with water? Is there a plan to ship Tasmanian water?’
‘We will see,’ Henry said enigmatically.
There was a long silence. Nothing else was forthcoming.
‘Tell me, May,’ I said, ‘I am intrigued by Mr Gao. We have not seen him again. Will he be returning from China soon?’
She smiled. ‘Forgive me, Astrid. I brought him to the meeting only because we know that in Tasmania, in a room full of men, a young woman would never be taken seriously—let alone an attractive Asian woman. Regardless of who I represent or my credentials. So I posed as his assistant and interpreter.’
May Chen was Shoughan’s lead here. Of course she was. All these weeks she had been posing as his representative after Mr Gao had been called back to China.
‘May is thinking of staying here in Tasmania, beyond the bridge,’ said Henry.
‘You’re going to move to Tasmania?’
‘I think you should tell Astrid about your father,’ said Henry.
‘My father is at Cloudy Bay,’ said May. ‘At Henry’s home. He is my only family. My father’s brother, my uncle, was the mayor of a small town in China. He disagreed with a plan to build a large shopping centre. Six men grabbed him off the street and held him down while a cement truck ran over him. There were witnesses but his death was ruled accidental. The official finding was that he had stepped in front of the truck. Stories circulated that he had taken advantage of state funds. His wife had to make a public apology. My father, his older brother, is an academic. He is an expert in late Ming Chinese literature. Because of his brother’s alleged corruption his social score was going to be lowered to the point where he would have no longer been employed at the university and he would have been unable to travel. You know about this?’
The Chinese government had mapped every citizen and scored them. The score was drawn from everyone they associated with, all the suppliers they used and all their online interactions. If you were considered a good consumer and citizen, aligned with Communist Party ideals, your score was high. If you stepped out of line, or you were associated with the wrong people or groups, your score dropped. If you had a low score, you were unable to enrol at certain schools, be employed by certain institutions or companies, and you weren’t allowed to travel, either within China or overseas.
‘He did not travel here under his own name,’ May said.
May Chen had just told me she had helped her father flee China.
‘But he is safe now,’ said Henry.
‘My father is Gao Enzhu,’ said May. She smiled at Henry and he smiled back.
It was only then that I realised May Chen and Henry Liu were in love. So maybe Beijing didn’t come first. Love did.
I looked again at Henry’s painting. ‘What don’t I know about the bridge?’ I asked.
‘The long term,’ said May Chen. ‘None of us do. But I am sure you have your doubts, as do I. What I do not know is how far those doubts will take you. You too have a loyalty to your family. But perhaps, this time, Astrid, it is misplaced.’