Rich People Problems (15 page)

Suddenly, all three women's phones started buzzing as a group call was being initiated from a Shanghai number.

“Tatiana, you silly bitch,” Georgina muttered under her breath as she swiped her phone to initiate the group call.

“Hi Kitty!” Wandi said in an overly cheery pitch.

“Hi everyone. What's this you sent me?” Kitty asked.

“Um, did you look at the picture or look at the link I just sent? Check out the photo. Don't bother looking at the other links,” Tatiana piped in urgently. There was a brief pause while Kitty scrutinized the picture on the screen of her phone.

“What am I supposed to be looking at? There's a bunch of gray-haired women with yellow teeth.”

“You don't see the bride?” Wandi asked.

“No—”

Georgina cut in. “Kitty, scroll down to the bottom of the page. Do you see the image of the bride and groom?”

There was silence for a few moments, as the girls all held their breath, not knowing how Kitty would react.

“How interesting,” Kitty finally said in a frighteningly neutral tone.

“Colette looks awful, doesn't she? Without her usual makeup and jewelry, she's such a plain Jane—her common features really come out.” Wandi sniggered.

“She looks like she's fallen on hard times,” Tatiana remarked.

Kitty let out a little laugh. “I can assure you Colette hasn't fallen on hard times. She's just trying to appear modest to impress her new relatives. They look like the sort of people Corinna Ko-Tung is always trying to introduce me to. Well, good luck to her and her new English life.”

Georgina was relieved that Kitty was taking it all so well. She was crossing her fingers, hoping to God that Kitty had completely missed the articles about the bridegroom when Kitty suddenly asked, “So do we know anything about the Rochambords?”

Damn, she's read everything
, Wandi said to herself.

“I've never heard of them.” Georgina sniffed.

“Hey, I'm at this house party on Mustique right now, and there's a girl here who might know,” Tatiana offered, adding rather unnecessarily, “She comes from a high-society family in France, from what I'm told.”

Tatiana padded out onto the terrace of the Balinese-style villa, where the girlfriend of her husband's business partner sat sipping black coffee out of a bowl. “Lucie, I'm on the phone with some friends. Have you ever heard of a family in France called the Rochambords?”

“Which branch?” Lucie asked.

“Um…I don't know. We know someone who married a guy whose mother is a Rochambord. Here, let me put you on speakerphone…”

“The mother's name is Liliane Rochambord,” Georgina offered.

Lucie's eyes widened. “
Liliane de Rochambord
? Are you talking about the mother of Lucien Montagu-Scott?”

“Yes! Do you know him?” Tatiana asked excitedly.

Lucie shook her head with a sigh. “I don't know him personally, but my God, every girl in France was madly in love with him. I mean, he's a future
duc
, and his mother is one of the
Bretagne
Rochambords, not the Paris branch that are the poorer cousins.”

“But who are the Rochambords?” Georgina pressed on.

“Oh, they are an
ancienne famille de la noblesse
…how do you say…an ancient noble family that intermarried with the Bourbons, and their line goes back to Louis XIII. The Paris branch has all the vineyards—you know, Château de Rochambord—but the Bretagne Rochambords own one of the biggest military defense companies in France. They make all the submarines and ships for the French navy. So who's your friend that married Lucien?”

“Colette Bing. But she's not our friend exactly,” Tatiana said awkwardly.

“She's a socialite and fashion blogger from Shanghai that—” Wandi began.

“She's a spoiled little cunt!” Kitty suddenly blurted out.

Everyone was too shocked to speak at first, but Georgina tried to turn it into a joke. “Haha, yes, she's famous for that spoiled rant that went viral, isn't she, Kitty?”

The line went silent for a few moments.

“Uh…I think Kitty hung up,” Tatiana said.

*1
Smiling, laughing, frowning, or arching of eyebrows is highly discouraged, though.

*2
What Wandi doesn't know is that the only people who can be married in Westminster Abbey are members of the British royal family, Order of the Bath members and their children, or anyone living in the Abbey's precincts. St. Paul's only allows weddings for members of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, the Order of the British Empire, holders of the British Empire Medal, and members of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor and their children (but not their grandchildren).

*3
Chinese + Indonesian × Aristocrat = Chindocrat

*4
She knew by age three that Hugo was too dumb to get in to Raffles.

*5
If they happened to be Japanese, Vietnamese, or any other type of Asian not mentioned on this list, abort scanner function. Totally inconsequential.

RANAKPUR, INDIA

Su Yi placed her hand on the white marble pillar and with her fingers traced the intricate carving of a goddess, feeling every undulating curve of the figure, so cool to the touch. The entire pillar was carved with figures of dancing damsels from the ground all the way up to the soaring dome. Su Yi looked around the space and saw that she was surrounded in every direction by thousands of white pillars, so many of them that it was impossible to count.
^*1
And every one of them had been sculpted with deities, animals, love scenes, war scenes—each one so painstakingly carved it looked more like lacework than stone. She could hardly believe how exquisite it was.

Su Yi felt so grateful that the maharani had arranged this trip for her to the Adinatha Temple, hidden in the remote Aravalli Range between Jodhpur and Udaipur. As she followed the marble passageway, she felt as though she were walking into a dream, and around another corner of the temple she came upon a beautiful tree growing in the middle of a serene stone courtyard. Underneath the tree was a young man in a simple saffron-colored robe, picking up stray leaves. He glanced up for a moment and smiled at her. Su Yi smiled shyly back at him before walking into yet another breathtakingly carved vestibule, this one depicting a deity entwined with hundreds of snakes.

“Excuse me, do you speak English?” a voice behind her suddenly asked. Su Yi turned around and saw that it was the young man. This time, she could see a faint gold dot painted in the middle of his forehead.

“I do,” she replied.

“Are you from China?”

“No, I am from the island of Singapore. It is in the Straits Settlements—”

“Ah, yes, on the tip of Malaya. There are a few Jains in Singapore. Please allow me to introduce myself: My name is Jai, and I am a priest here. My grandfather is the high priest of this temple, and one day my father shall be high priest, and then it will pass on to me. But not for a long time.”

“You are very fortunate. This is the most beautiful temple I have ever been to,” Su Yi said.

“May I offer you a blessing?”

“I would be honored.”

The priest guided her along to a quiet corner of the temple that was open to the view. They sat on the steps of a marble altar and looked out at the undulating hills as a cool breeze blew into the chamber. The monk smiled at her again. “We do not often get visitors from Singapore at the temple. I noticed you when you first entered the temple with your chaperone, because you were so beautifully dressed, but when you smiled at me, I sensed a great sadness in you.”

Su Yi nodded, lowering her eyes. “I am away from my family, and my island is at war.”

“Yes, I have heard about the war spreading through southern Asia. I do not understand this war. But I sense that your sadness comes from a deeper place…” He gazed intently at her, and Su Yi noticed for the first time that his irises had an almost bluish gray tint to them. Suddenly she found her eyes welling uncontrollably with tears.

“My brother,” Su Yi said almost inaudibly, her throat choking up. “My elder brother has been missing for some time.” She had told no one about this, and she wasn't sure why she was telling him now. She was about to reach into her purse for her handkerchief when the monk produced one, seemingly out of nowhere. It was a silk scarf with a deep-blue-and-purple paisley pattern, and it seemed incongruous with the rest of his austere appearance. Su Yi wiped away her tears and looked up at the priest, who suddenly appeared to be wearing wire-frame glasses just like the ones her brother wore.

“Yes, your brother Alexander wants to tell you something. Would you like to hear his message?”

Su Yi looked at him, not comprehending what he meant at first. Before she could answer, the priest began to unleash a torrent of Hokkien:
Seven. Eight. Nine. Coming ashore. Bloody hell, there's too many of them. This won't work. This won't work at all.

A chill ran down her spine. This was her brother's voice coming out of the priest's mouth, and he was muttering the same nonsensical things he had said when he had been deliriously ill.

“What won't work? Ah Jit, tell me, what won't work?” Su Yi asked urgently.

“I can't take that many. It's too dangerous. We have to move very quickly, and we can't fight back?”

“Ah Jit, slow down, who's fighting back?” Su Yi wrung her hands in frustration, feeling them get sticky. When she looked down at the silk paisley handkerchief, she saw that it was covered in a strange weblike mucus mixed with blood. Suddenly her brother stopped his incoherent ranting and spoke to her in a clear, lucid tone. “I think you know what to do now, Su Yi. Trust your instincts. This is the only way we can atone for all that our ancestors have done. You can never tell anyone, especially not Father.”

In an instant, she knew what her brother meant. “How am I going to do all this by myself?”

“I have no doubt in you, sister. You are the last hope now…are you awake? Mummy, are you awake?”

Su Yi felt a hand on her shoulder, and suddenly she was no longer in that exquisite temple in Ranakpur, and the priest with the bluish eyes was gone. She found herself waking up in her bedroom at Tyersall Park, the morning sun glaring into her eyes.

“Mummy, are you awake? I've brought Bishop See to see you,” Victoria said chirpily.

Su Yi let out a low groan.

“I think she may be in pain,” Bishop See said.

Su Yi groaned again.
This irritating daughter just interrupted me from one of the most vivid moments in my life. Ah Jit was speaking to me, Ah Jit was trying to tell me something, and now he's gone.

“Let me call in the nurse,” Victoria said in a worried tone. “She's pumped so full of hydrocodone, she really shouldn't be feeling anything. They said there might be hallucinations, that's all.”

“I'm not in pain, you just woke me up so suddenly,” Su Yi muttered in frustration.

“Well, Bishop See is here to say a prayer for you—”

“Please, some water…” Su Yi said, her throat as usual feeling so parched in the morning.

“Oh yes, water. Now, let me see. Bishop See, could you do me a favor and go into my mother's dressing room? There are some Venetian glasses on a tray beside her dressing table, lovely handblown glasses with dolphin stems from a wonderful shop near the Danieli. Just bring me one of those.”

“
Aiyah
, there's a plastic cup right here.” Su Yi gestured to the bedside table.

“Oh, silly me, I didn't see that. Ah, Bishop See, do you see a water carafe by that table behind you? There should be an insulated silver carafe, with an art nouveau motif of stephanotis flowers carved along the handle.”

“Just get me the goddamn cup,” Su Yi said.

“Oh dear, Mummy,
language
. Bishop See is in the room,” Victoria said, trying to hand over the cup.

“Do you not see that my hands are tangled up in tubes? You need to help me sip the water from the straw!” Su Yi said in frustration.

“Here, do allow me.” The bishop stepped in and took the cup from a frazzled Victoria.

“Thank you,” Su Yi said gratefully after she had taken a few precious sips.

“Now Mummy, Bishop See and I were speaking earlier over breakfast, and I was reminded that you've never been baptized. The bishop has kindly brought with him a little vessel of holy water from the River Jordan, and I'm wondering if we might do a ritual baptism right here in this room.”

“No, I don't want to be baptized,” Su Yi said flatly.

“But Mummy, do you not realize that until you are baptized, you can never enter the kingdom of heaven?”

“How many times do I have to tell you I am not a Christian?”

“Don't be silly, Mummy, of course you are. If you're not a Christian, you won't be able to go to heaven. Don't you want to be with Daddy…and
all of us
in the future that is eternity?”

Su Yi could not think of a worse fate than to be trapped with her
eem zheem
^*2
daughter throughout all of eternity. She simply sighed, tired of having this conversation again.

“Er, Mrs. Young…if I might ask,” the bishop began gingerly, “if you aren't a Christian, what do you consider yourself to be?”

“I respect every god,” she replied softly.

Victoria rolled her eyes derisively. “My grandfather Shang Loong Ma's people were Buddhists, Taoists, Quan Yin worshippers, all that mishmash of religions…you know, in that old-fashioned
Chinese
sort of way.”

The bishop adjusted his collar, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Well, Victoria, we really can't force your mother to be baptized, but perhaps we can pray that she will allow Jesus Christ into her heart. We have to let Jesus come into her softly, gently.”

“I don't need Jesus to come into me,” Su Yi said agitatedly. “I am not Christian. If I'm anything, I'm a Jain.”

“Mummy, what on earth are you talking about? What is a Jane? Are you confused and talking about your friend Jane Wrightsman?” Victoria asked, looking up at the IV machine to make sure her mother wasn't being overdosed with some crazy opiate.

“Jainism is an ancient religion that is an offshoot of Hinduism—”
^*3
Bishop See began to explain.

Victoria stared at her mother in horror. “Hinduism? You can't possibly be Hindu. My goodness,
our laundry maids are Hindu!
Don't say you are a Hindu, Mummy—it would absolutely break my heart!”

Su Yi shook her head wearily and pressed the buzzer in her right hand. Moments later, her lady's maids entered the room. “Madri, Patravadee, please show Victoria out,” she ordered.

“Victoria, come, we can say a prayer together outside,” the bishop urged, glancing up at Su Yi's heart rate monitor nervously.

“Mother, you can't just order me out of your room like this. Your soul is in peril!” Victoria shrieked, as Alix entered the bedroom amid all the commotion.

Su Yi glanced up at Alix pleadingly. “Please tell Victoria to leave. She is irritating me to death!”

“All right then,” Victoria said in a quiet voice, as she turned swiftly and stormed out of the bedroom.

Patravadee turned to Su Yi with an attentive smile. “Madame, your usual porridge this morning?”

“Yes. And tell them to put an egg in it today,” Su Yi instructed. As soon as her lady's maids left, Su Yi let out a long sigh.

“She means well, Mummy,” Alix said diplomatically.

“Why does she always have to be such a nuisance? And I can't stand that fat little
lan jiau bin
^*4
See Bei Sien. You know he only wants money for his cathedral building fund. Victoria writes him so many checks every month her account is always going into overdraft.”

“Victoria may have her irritating ways, but she has a good heart. She is the most generous person out of anyone I know.”

Su Yi smiled at Alix. “And you are always the peacemaker. Even when you were a little girl, you were always the one to heal the rifts between your sisters. Will you be sure to keep the peace after I'm gone?”

“Of course, Mummy. But don't worry—Prof Oon assures me your heart is improving every day. Even Malcolm said he's so pleased with your progress.”

“That may be the case, but I know I can't live forever.”

Alix didn't know what to say. She simply busied herself by straightening her mother's bedsheets and smoothing them out.

“Alix, you don't have to be afraid for me. I have no fear of death—you have no idea how many times I've stared it in the face. I just don't wish to be in any pain, that's all.”

“Prof Oon is making sure of that,” Alix said matter-of-factly.

“Alix, will you do me a favor? Will you call Freddie Tan and tell him to come over?”

“Er…Freddie Tan, your lawyer?” Alix asked, unnerved by the request.

“Yes. It's very important that I see him as soon as possible. His number is in the address book on my dressing table.”

“Of course. I'll go and call him right now,” Alix said.

Su Yi closed her eyes, attempting to relax for a moment. She was still trying to forget the look of hurt she had seen on Victoria's face after she had snapped at her.
Stupid girl!
The words came echoing back to her, from a memory far back in time…

“You stupid, stupid girl!”

Her father had snarled angrily when Su Yi had appeared in the basement of the shop house at Telok Ayer Street. “Do you know the fortune I spent, the number of favors I had to call in, just to get you safely out of Singapore? Why are you here?”

“Did you think I could just sit in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel while I got news every day about all the terrible things that were happening back here? All the bombings, all the people being tortured and killed?”

“Which is exactly why I got you out of Singapore! On the last frigate out!”

“I didn't know what was happening here, Pa. I got news about everyone else—Tan Kah Kee, Uncle SQ, Uncle Tsai Kuen, but there was never any news of you. When Chin Tuan came to India, he said he hadn't heard any news about you. That's when I thought you had been captured or maybe even killed somewhere!”

“I told you you weren't going to hear from me. I told you I would be fine!”

“Fine? Look at you—hiding in a hole in the ground, dressed in rags!” Su Yi said, tears in her eyes as she looked at her father in his stained singlet and trousers full of cigar ash. She had never seen her father out of his three-piece suit before. With his head shaved and his face smeared with dirt, he looked almost unrecognizable.

“Silly girl! Don't you see I'm dressed like this on purpose? The only way to survive is to be invisible. I made myself look like an illiterate dockworker. The Japanese soldiers don't even bother to spit in my direction! Now how the hell did you get back into the country without getting yourself raped or killed?”