Tales of Accidental Genius (14 page)

Seven hundred miles north of Ningbo, on a lonely stretch of the
Rongwu Expressway, Cherry noticed someone sitting

in the backseat and started screaming.

Weng glanced quickly, expecting to see Mr. Yi's father,

but instead it was the face of a man he didn't know,

wearing a sad, vacant expression.

Cherry was so hysterical, Weng had to pull

to the side of the road.

When the car stopped, she flung open the door

and ran into the middle of a field.

It was hard to speak, but at last she was able

to tell Weng who the man in the backseat was.

When Cherry was ready to listen, Weng told her about Mr. Yi's
father, and how he'd turned the Hello Kitty bobbleheads into a
choir.

Cherry just couldn't understand how it was possible.

Weng didn't know either.

“Maybe it came with the karaoke package?”

“We should find out what he has to say,” Weng said. “Get back
in the car before he disappears.”

When they were on the highway again, Cherry undid her seat
belt, and turned around to face the husband

she had not seen for so many years.

“Are you alive?” she said.

The ghost closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side.

Weng asked how it happened.

“Knocked off my bicycle by a vegetable truck.”

“Even though I thought I didn't love you anymore,” Cherry
told the ghost, “seeing you like this has brought some of the old
tenderness back.”

“None of what happened was your fault,” the ghost confessed.
“I lived drunk and I died drunk. But listen, now. I have come
back to tell you something important. Right now, Shirley is
making her way through the dark streets to Ningbo station,
where she plans to board an early train. You have to get there
before the 5:13
A.M.
leaves for Beijing.”

“But that's only five hours!” Cherry exclaimed,
“and we're not even halfway—”

“I know,” the ghost said, drifting toward Fun Weng,

“Which is another reason I'm here—now you know why

they call it the Phantom.”

Within a few seconds, the Phantom had reached its top speed.

Any cars they passed shook violently in a flash of lights,

leaving the occupants to wonder whether they had been
brushed by a low-flying jet,

or were part of a military experiment.

When they arrived at the outskirts of Ningbo,

it was twenty minutes before Shirley's train was due to depart.

“I'm going now,” the ghost told them. “I hope I've been more
use in death than I was in life.” Cherry reached out her hand,
but the ghost didn't move.

“My body was never identified, but there's a police record of the
accident, so you should be able to get married.”

“Thanks for helping us,” Cherry said.

“Hurry now,” the voice instructed.

“There's less time than you think.”

They dumped the Rolls in a vacant bus lane and ran into the
station. Weng took one platform while Cherry took another.

When it came time for the train to leave, there was still no sign
of Shirley, so Weng told the guard,

who used his radio to delay the train.

But after an hour's search, no child was found.

The train staff promised to keep an eye out, and to alert police

when they arrived in Beijing. Cherry wondered if perhaps her
daughter had changed her mind, and was back home in bed—
or even if her late husband's ghost was up to no good.

When they returned to the car,

a gang of police was waiting for them.

“Why did you leave your car running in a bus lane with a child

by herself?” one of them said accusingly, stepping aside to

reveal Shirley in the backseat breakfasting on a Bunny Pop.

Another policeman shook his head in reproach. “You are rich

but must learn what it means to be good parents.”

Then Cherry got into the backseat

and kissed her daughter all over.

“Please tell me you're not a ghost,” she said.

“How did you find the car?” Weng asked as they drove away.

Shirley said a kind old farmer had asked for help

to find his train to Guanshan,

but instead had guided her through the crowds until

she was next to the big car she knew so well.

“Did he say anything else?” Weng said.

“Yes,” Shirley said. “He asked me if I like pigs then

said his son is not in New England after all.

I just smiled. Old people get so confused.”

When the three of them got back to Beijing the next day,

Weng drove over to Mr. Yi's office.

The secretary did not give much information,

and did not recognize Weng, so he told her

that he knew Mr. Yi was in Beijing,

and had orders to deliver his car.

The secretary looked out the window

at the black Rolls-Royce below.

“Okay,” she said. “Here's the address where he is.”

It took a long time through Beijing traffic

to reach Mr. Yi's apartment.

Weng buzzed several times before a sad, small voice

filled the security system.

The elevator went straight up and opened on his apartment.

Mr. Yi was in a bathrobe drinking Scotch. He seemed angry.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was worried about you, Mr. Yi.”

“About me? Well, it's not the best time. . . .”

“May I come in?” Weng said.

“No.”

“Please?”

“What do you want to come in for?”

“To talk about Golden Helper.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes, I just want to come in.”

“Bad timing.”

“Well, at least let me come in and make you some tea.”

“Maybe tomorrow, Fun Weng,

we can meet at the hotel on Goldfish Lane.”

“I'd like to come in now, if that's okay.”

“I'm busy!” Mr. Yi snapped. “Why now?”

Weng glanced down at Mr. Yi's velvet slippers. “Because the
ghost of your father appeared in the backseat of my car and
begged that I come over and save you from a childless life of
loneliness and depression.”

Mr. Yi just stared at him.

“Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. Yi?”

After dinner, Weng tried to suggest some changes for Mr. Yi,
maybe a move to somewhere more peaceful near his mother, or
ballroom lessons in the park,

or some new business venture. . . .

“That's the last thing I need,” Mr. Yi said. “More business!”

“But I thought you loved it,” Weng said, “And you're so good at
making money.”

“You are mistaken,” Mr. Yi said. “I love putting things together.
Making things work. Seeing things come into the world from
nothing—money is just a result of this.”

“Like with Golden Helper II?”

“Exactly,” Mr. Yi said. “Good old blind Mr. Fun.”

“What else can you do, then?” Weng asked, thinking aloud.
“What excited you most as a boy?”

Mr. Yi considered the question carefully.

“When my father used to give me old radios or tractor parts to
take apart, back on the pig farm. I used to love getting my hands
oily and discovering how things worked. But I'm

older now, Fun Weng, and such a long way

from the happiness of childhood.”

After putting Mr. Yi to bed, Weng texted Cherry to say that
everything was all right then tidied the apartment,

bagging empty bottles,

and putting leftover food in the trash.

Before going home, he scribbled out a note

and left it on the table.

亲爱的易先生:

明天我会给您的秘书打电话
，
告诉您我们见面的时间和地
点
。
请穿旧衣服
，
就像农村养猪的农民穿的那种军装
。

你的朋友
翁

Dear Mr. Yi,

Tomorrow I'm going to call your secretary with a date and an
address of somewhere I want you to meet me. Dress in something
old, like the army clothes pig farmers wear in the countryside.

Your friend

Weng

The next morning, Weng called Cherry's old boss at the factory,

then got in touch with the Beijing School for Blind Children

that his son attended.

The principal of the school listened to Fun Weng's proposal,

then suggested they meet that afternoon in person at her office.

After a tour of the facilities, Weng reiterated his willingness

to make a donation, but humbly requested that a gifted

engineer he knows

be allowed to visit the school and give

elementary lessons in mechanics.

“Of course!” Said the principal, “We always welcome

skilled volunteers, as we do donations of any sort.

Did you have a figure in mind, Mr. Fun?”

“Yes,” Weng said, “but there isn't enough space on the

check for all the zeros, so I'll be sending cash if that's okay.”

The principal was silent for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“For a moment there, Mr. Fun, I thought you were serious.”

The next morning, three hundred Golden Helper mechanisms,

three hundred basic tool sets, thirty thousand Bunny Pops,

and a convoy of armored cars were dispatched

to the Beijing School for Blind Children.

A year later, Weng and Mr. Yi bought an additional

eight Rolls-Royce Phantoms to use as school buses,

and Uncle Ping joined the faculty as professor of karaoke.

It was also agreed that continuing profits from Golden Helper II

would be funneled directly into the building

and staffing of schools for disabled children across the globe,

which is exactly the sort of thing blind Mr. Fun had in mind

as he folded pieces of newspaper in a special way

at the kitchen table one night,

his wife and son asleep in the next room,

rolling around in dreams

on the old spring bed.

A version of “The Menace of Mile End” appeared on Booktrack (Soundtracks for Books) in 2013.

A version of “The Muse” was commissioned by the Waldorf Astoria in 2013, and appears on its website and was printed in
Waldorf Astoria Magazine
.

A version of “Private Life of a Famous Chinese Film Director” appeared in Issue 27 of
AnOther Magazine
.

The author wishes to acknowledge the following people:

Amy Baker; Betty; Joshua Bodwell; Bryan Le Boeuf; my dear brother, Darren Booy, and his wife, Raha; Joan and Stephen Booy; Catrin Brace and the Welsh Assembly Government; Ken Browar; Laura Brown; David Bruson; Jonathan Burnham; Cherry; Li Chow; Denise and James Connelly; Rejean Daigneault; Trent Duffy; Cynthia and Justin Ellis; Wolfgang Egger; Dr. Shilpi Epstein; Laurie Fink; Foxy; Dani Gill; Dr. Bruce Gelb; Primal Groudon; Jen Hart; Dolores Henry; Gregory Henry; Nancy Horner; Mr. Howard; Prof. Huang; Jig; Zach Johnson; Jermyn St. Journal; Carlos Juarbe; David Kaplan; Jamie Kerner; Hilary Knight; Sam Levinson; Dorit Matthews; Megatronus; Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Morris III; Michael Morrison; Lukas Ortiz; Deborah Ory; Wendy and Jon Paton; Peninsula Hotel, Beijing; Peng Lun; Qu Zhongru; Jonathan D. Rabinowitz; Ashwin Rattan; Tamara Rawitt; Rob; Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, China; Marcell Rosenblatt; Lori and Ted Schultz; Lisa Sharkey; Ivan Shaw and Lisa Von Weise Shaw; Dmitri Shostakovich; Oriana Siska, Tuesday; Violet; Virginia Stanley; Jeremy Strong; the Vilcek Foundation; Waldorf Astoria Hotels; Mojo Wang; Sherry Wasserman; Sylvia Beach Whitman at Shakespeare & Company; and Georgi Zhikharev.

These amazing individuals at Conville & Walsh:

Jake Smith-Bosanquet; Alexander Cochran; Alexandra McNicoll.

Extra special thanks for the emotional support, close friendship, and editorial feedback of Lucas Hunt, Carrie Kania, and Cal Morgan; and of course my wonderful wife, Christina Daigneault, and our brilliant daughter, Madeleine.